French charity l’Auberge de Migrants told Reuters that hundreds of migrants in Grande-Synthe had no access to shelter, showers or running water.

"These people are on the streets, with only a cover to sleep with, with no toilets or showers," Maya Konforti, who works for L'Auberge des Migrants, told Reuters.

"Everything is done to discourage refugees from being there," Konforti said, and added that there is "constant harassment" of migrants and aid workers.

The camp at Grande-Synthe was France’s last major refugee camp, first built by the city and charity group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in March 2016. A fire tore through the camp on April 10, destroying the 300 plywood sheds that housed some 1,500 asylum-seekers and migrants.

Authorities say they have found housing for 1,100 of the people who had been living in the Grande-Synthe camp. But hundreds remain without shelter. French weekly l’Express reported May 22 that many lived in the woods next to the burned-out camp site, and that the city distributed 200 meals per day there.

The area around Dunkirk and Calais on France’s north coast was home to thousands of homeless migrants trying to smuggle themselves to the UK throughout 2015 and 2016.

A camp outside of Calais, the country’s biggest, was closed in November 2015, and the people there distributed to housing centers throughout France. The French government under then-president François Hollande announced in March 2016 that it was intending to close the Grande-Synthe camp.