Local churches in Dunkirk helped to evacuate terrified migrants on 10 April as a devastating fire spread through their camp in northern France.
La Linière camp in Grande-Synthe, just outside Dunkirk, housed an estimated 1,500 migrants, including a handful of Christian converts, but was reduced to ‘a heap of ashes’, a local official said. Afghan migrants reportedly began to set fire to the chipboard cabins in which the migrants lived and the fires quickly spread. Riot police intervened.
Knife fight
At least a dozen people were injured – some as a result of the blaze, others because of the knife fight that preceded it, when Kurdish and Afghan migrants clashed. Three Iranian converts to Christianity needed medical treatment for burns on their legs.
