First unaccompanied Calais kids now in UK

The UK has received the first busload of 14 unaccompanied children from the closing Calais refugee and migrant camp.

The first busload of children from the "Jungle" camp near the French port of Calais have arrived in the UK as the British government acts on its commitment to take in unaccompanied migrant children before the camp is destroyed.

The fate of children staying in the Jungle, where up to 10,000 people fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East and Africa have converged seeking ways to cross to Britain, has been a problem for the British government.

Religious leaders, refugee rights campaign groups and opposition parties have accused the government of dragging its heels on helping to move unaccompanied children out of the camp, which France has said it will soon demolish.

The French and British interior ministers, Bernard Cazeneuve and Amber Rudd, agreed in talks on Octobrt 10 to speed up the process of moving children eligible to go to Britain out of the Jungle.

Fourteen children, the first whose cases have been processed, arrived by bus in Croydon, south London, on Monday to be reunited with relatives already living in Britain.

Faith leaders and aid workers were on hand to welcome and assist them.

"The camp at Calais is a desperate, dangerous, horrible place, nowhere any adult should be, let alone any child," said Bishop of Croydon Jonathan Clark.

It is not known exactly how many children will be brought to Britain.

The British interior ministry has said 80 children had been accepted for transfer from France so far this year under EU family reunification rules known as the Dublin regulation.

The Red Cross estimates that 1000 unaccompanied children are living in the Jungle, of whom 178 have been identified as having family ties to Britain.

It has said some of these children have been held back by bureaucracy.


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Source: AAP



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