The Grand-Synthe settlement in Dunkirk is home to around 2,500 migrants who are living in conditions so squalid that aid workers say it is on the brink of a sanitation crisis. It is described as "far worse than the Calais jungle" but has largely gone unnoticed until now. Disturbing images show young children wading knee-deep through thick mud while their families huddle around fires, surrounded by ever-growing piles of rubbish. In some places, mounds of sodden clothing, mud-soaked duvets and shoes swallowed by the swamp sit next to polluted streams and marquees selling food. Elsewhere, metal sheets form makeshift paths between groups of tents in the flooded field, which has been battered by constant rain in recent weeks. Grande-Synthe camp has only two drinking water points and 26 toilets, which is roughly one per 100 people - five times fewer than the bare minimum in other refugee camps. The occupants, who are mostly Iraqi Kurds with some Syrians and Persians, live in squalid marshland conditions which are rife with disease and infested by rats. There are no healthcare facilities whatsoever, though doctors from Médecins Sans Frontières? (MSF) visit the camp a few times a week to treat the sick.
