PARIS (AP) — A British national driving a small truck with 18 migrants inside, five of them children, has been arrested near the northern French port city of Dunkirk.

Police said on Thursday that the man they arrested for suspected smuggling was of Iranian origin.

They say the truck he was driving had British license plates and carried Syrian and Iraqi migrants. It was intercepted near a refugee camp in Grande-Synthe outside Dunkirk.

The camp was set up by Doctors Without Borders this year to replace a makeshift camp nearby that was a haven for smugglers.

A police official says 36 suspected smugglers have been arrested in the Dunkirk region since the beginning of the year.

Like migrants in nearby Calais, those in Dunkirk travel to northern France in a bid to get into Britain.