Salim ’ s Story

Yesterday I met Salim. He was kicking some rocks around in the middle of the forest near his temporary migrant camp in Dunkirk, France. Around him, all that was left of what had been his home for the last two weeks was an extinguished fireplace, a can of beans thrown on the floor, empty bottles of water, and clothes hanging to dry on trees. On Tuesday morning, French riot police had surrounded the camps, evicted the 700 people living there and made some arrests. Scared, Salim ran away with other dispossessed people, deeper into the woods. All he had in the world…a few beans he’d been cooking for his breakfast trampled into the earth. His only shelter from the sun, the flies, the dirt and the wind…a tent…gone who knows where? Salim is only 14. He’s from Iraq. A country scarred by decades of war. He’s one of the unaccompanied minors that live in the informal settlements of Dunkirk. There are many small settlements in the area: empty corners of land among the trees where people pitch their tents and cook food together. Salim’s settlement had been there for months before the eviction. When I met him with the rest of Doctors of the World (Médecins du Monde) team, we’d gone to the camp to assess the situation and health needs. That morning, the state-run camp of Grande-Synthe had been evicted. We’d heard some of the asylum seekers might have escaped the eviction (which meant being moved to far away parts of France) by joining a makeshift camp ...
Source: Doctors of the World News - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Uncategorised Source Type: news