Imogen hands me her mobile phone as she keeps her eyes on the road. She is in the driving seat of our van and we are leaving a site for refugees in Dunkirk. We have just spotted a convoy of eight vans of armed police headed towards the unofficial living site. I type out a message she dictates to me for a WhatsApp group of colleagues, warning that an eviction may be afoot.
A week earlier, the entire site of hundreds of men, women, young children and babies had been evicted; people’s possessions and tents confiscated leaving them with just the clothes on their backs. The morning before, riot police circled the camp, armed with guns and shields, staring at the volunteers and refugees for around an hour before leaving.
As Imogen, senior operations manager at Care4Calais, had informed us in our morning briefing, the Compagnies Républicaines
