Iran Press/Europe: French police began clearing around 1,000 migrants from a gymnasium near the northern port of Dunkirk last Thursday after a court ruled it was a health and security hazard.
The mayor of Grande-Synthe in December 2018 opened up the sports hall to migrant families seeking shelter from the cold, AFP reported.
Since then, it has grown into a makeshift camp, with around 800 people sleeping in tents pitched around the crammed gymnasium were around 170 people, mostly Iraqi Kurds hoping to reach Britain, had been sheltering.
Young men traveling alone were the first to board buses that will take them to shelters around the region, where they can apply for asylum.
The area around Grande-Synthe has traditionally drawn Iraqi Kurds and has been repeatedly cleared in recent years.
In 2016, French authorities razed to the ground a squat — nicknamed the 'Jungle' — in the vicinity of the port of Calais. It was home to 10,000 refugees at its height. Since then, French authorities have adopted a policy of trying to prevent refugees forming similar camps.
However, rights groups have lambasted police tactics in displacing refugees. Back in December last year, France’s human rights ombudsman, Jacques Toubon, condemned the 'extreme destitution' suffered by people camping out or sleeping under bridges in the area.
At the time, he accused the country’s authorities of “trying to make (migrants) invisible” by regularly demolishing their camps without providing them with viable alternatives.
The situation in France is part of a wider refugee crisis across Europe, which has been struggling with its biggest influx of asylum seekers since World War II, as people flee conflict-ridden zones in Africa and the Middle East.
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