Mobile Refugee Support (MRS) was founded in June last year by Charlie Whitbread, 31, from Hertfordshire. It provides daily halal food packages, sleeping bags and tents, charging stations, wifi and fuel for generators to families living in squalid conditions in the woods or temporary accommodation around northern French ports.
Migrants set on reaching the UK remain in local sub-camps, more of which opened after the notorious Jungle camp at Calais was torn down in autumn 2016.
MRS volunteers help to care for newborn babies and children under five who have fled violence under so-called Islamic State, led by a core team including co-founder Jed Tinsley, 22, from Liverpool, and Mustafa, 23, a Libyan refugee who fled Benghazi. Mustafa translates and the team live in tents or in a rented house in Calais, where they store provisions.
Mr Whitbread said vulnerable women and children at Dunkirk had been “very overlooked”.
He told the Standard: “Conditions in Dunkirk are probably worse as it gets less press attention and therefore less money from government. For example, boys in Calais get water once a day, but in Dunkirk they don’t have any water provision. The centres are similar to those erected after hurricanes or natural disasters for a few days, and they are awful.”
He is appealing for donations to the group’s JustGiving page, MRSspringappeal.
