A second ‘humanitarian’ refugee camp capable of holding up to eight thousand migrants is set to be opened on the French channel coast within the next four weeks.

The new ‘Sangatte’ style camp is to be sited at Grand Synthe near Dunkirk and just 30 miles from the vast ‘Jungle’ camp in Calais which is currently home to around 5,000 refugees.

The new official camp will initially be used near Dunkirk to house around 2,500 Iraqi Kurds who will be able to stay in 500 specially heated tents.

Existing camp: A Kurdish boy from Iraq boy poses in the current camp in Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk

The rat infested and boggy area known as 'Jungle Two' is expected to be dismantled in the near future

The numbers of UK bound migrants camping out at Grande Synthe near Dunkirk in recent months has risen from 100 last summer to just under 3,000 currently

The Kurds will be moved to the new site while the rat infested and boggy area of woodland which they inhabit and is known as 'Jungle Two' is expected to be dismantled in the near future.

The new Dunkirk camp is the brainchild of Damien Carême who is the Mayor of Grande Synthe and the camp will be situated just seven miles from the ferry terminal.

The heavily fenced camp will be sited on a vast area of land sandwiched between railway lines and the A16 motorway which links Dunkirk to Calais.

The humanitarian mayor has previously said his ‘worst nightmare’ would be seeing a child drowning or succumbing to a fatal disease at ‘Jungle Two’.

When an aide to the mayor was asked why Grande Synthe was chosen, she said bluntly: ‘No one else would have them,’

But yesterday there were fears that the new Dunkirk site is so vast that it will simply be a staging post for thousands of migrants as they wait for an opportunity to get across the Channel to a new life in the UK.

The regional newspaper Voix du Nord reported that ‘at first sight there could be space enough for six or eight thousand people'.

There are now fears on both sides of the Channel that this year thousands more refugees from war torn Syria, Iraq and Africa will arrive at both Calais and the new Dunkirk camp to try and get to Britain.

A refugee child pictured in the mud in the camp in the coastal town of Grande-Synthe near Dunkirk, France

There are 3,000 migrants at 'Jungle Two' where doctors have described conditions as ‘life threatening’

Once the new Dunkirk camp at Grande Synthe is running it is expected the ‘Jungle Two’ camp (pictured) will be dismantled

'They continue to arrive in their hundreds. There is nothing to suggest that numbers will diminish in the months to come,’ one French source told the Daily Mail.

‘It is inhumane to allow them to camp out in filth and mud'.

One doctor treating Kurds at a makeshift clinic at ‘Jungle Two’ added: 'If you think that the migrants are going to stop coming then you are either stupid or naive.

'They will arrive in their thousands from Asia and Africa because they want new lives and the last stage of their journey is here, where they are within sight of England'.

The numbers of UK bound migrants camping out at Grande Synthe near Dunkirk in recent months has risen from 100 last summer to just under 3,000 currently, but with more arriving on a daily basis.

The cost to the French taxpayer of running the new Dunkirk camp, where the refugees will receive hot meals, showers and sanitary facilities, is estimated as more than a £1 million annually.

There are already 3,000 migrants camping at 'Jungle Two', where doctors have described conditions as ‘life threatening’ and worse than the official 'Jungle One ' camp at Calais.

The Mayor of Calais has told of the inhabitants ‘facing mortal danger’ due to floods and disease while they survive on hand-outs from local charity groups.