South Yorkshire Charity provide Afghan refugees in Calais with vital resources
Sheffield's 'Stand Up To Racism' group made the trip to France just last month
A South Yorkshire charity's sharing some of the heart-breaking scenes facing refugees as they try and make it across from France to the UK.
'Stand Up To Racism' in Sheffield recently travelled to Calais to help provide tents, clothes and food to the many attempting to get across the English Channel.
Maxine Bowler from the organisation's been speaking to us - as part of our investigation into the Afghan refugee 'crisis'.
She tells us the situation in Calais has got worse since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan:
"It feels like in every little pocket of waste land, people have stuck a tent up.
"They've got nothing-very little at all. They're just hiding away really. Obviously, they want to be as near to the port as they can, but all around the port is barbed wire.
"We'll take all our stuff there normally on our trips to Calais, and we'll drop it off at a distribution centre. Then we try and head out to the bits of wasteland, where we can give people a warm drink, jogging bottoms, t-shirts, coats, or whatever we have.
"I think for a lot of people, just speaking to these poor people makes a big difference, as refugees don't tend to get a lot of sympathy."
Maxine and the rest of Sheffield's 'Stand Up To Racism' group last made the journey to Calais in November.
She tells us it was shocking to see:
"It now looks like a concentration camp when you arrive there because it's all barbed wire across the top.
"Desperate people will do whatever they can really to get across the channel, and I don't think we should abandon them.
"There's an outpouring of sympathy from us for all those Afghan refugees. Many of them didn't get on the planes in August, they will have trekked across the continent-risking life and limb in the process-but they've not been left with any choice.
"We can't imagine what life has been like for them."