Calais: France Says UK Must Take in 1000+ Refugee Children
Local Editor
French officials demanded that Britain give homes to more than 1,000 refugee children who remain in shipping containers on the site of the now-cleared Calais camp, amid renewed tense diplomatic wrangling over the fate of the unaccompanied minors.
As bulldozers began destroying the remains of the camp, there was concern about the future of nearly 1,500 children given short-term accommodation in a fenced-off section of the camp. Both the president of the regional council and the head of France's official refugee agency, Ofpra, said on Friday night that Britain should accept all of them.
Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France regional council, pointed out that only 300 minors had been taken to the UK, and added: "We now need the British government to implement and accelerate the juvenile transfer process to the UK ... It is a question of humanity and dignity."
The head of Ofpra, Pascal Brice, said that since France had given homes to around 4,400 adults, it was only fair that Britain took its share.
"We've done Britain's work in tending to the adults," he told Reuters. "The least they can do is take care of the isolated minors who are now at the CAP [temporary lodgings] and who have an interest in going to Britain."
The renewed pressure on the UK to take more Calais refugees came 24 hours after the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, told his British counterpart, Amber Rudd that Britain should "quickly execute its responsibilities to take in these minors, who hope to come to the United Kingdom. This is the best way to give them the protection they are due."
The Home Office said it expects to give sanctuary to a few hundred more children once their asylum claims have been investigated, but will not make any firm commitments on numbers until the cases have been processed.
With the final clearance of the Calais camp complete, one refugee charity in Paris reported a sharp rise in the number of asylum seekers sleeping rough, indicating that at least some of the refugee population may simply have been shifted elsewhere.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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