- Title: France demands Britain take in Calais migrant children
- Date: 10th October 2016
- Summary: CALAIS, FRANCE (FILE - AUGUST 20, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF THEN HOME SECRETARY AND NOW BRITISH PRIME MINISTER, THERESA MAY AND CAZENEUVE, MEETING POLICEMEN WORKING AT THE EUROTUNNEL TERMINAL IN CALAIS
- Embargoed: 25th October 2016 11:23
- Keywords: calais Cazeneuve May migrants children red cross
- Location: PARIS AND CALAIS, FRANCE
- City: PARIS AND CALAIS, FRANCE
- Country: France
- Topics: Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics
- Reuters ID: LVA00553FAA13
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Paris demanded on Monday (October 10) that Britain honour promises to take in migrant children from the notorious Jungle camp in the French port city of Calais, adding to pressure following accusations by the Red Cross that London is dragging its heels.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said he would press the case at a lunchtime meeting in London with his opposite number in the British government, Amber Rudd.
"There are several hundred isolated minors in Calais who have family in Britain. We are currently establishing a precise list. The British must take their responsibility. We took our responsibility through France's asylum traditions, through our humanitarian duty. Great Britain is also a country of human rights and they must take their responsibility," Cazeneuve told RTL radio ahead of his London meeting, adding it was the country's "moral duty" to take in the children.
The notoriously overcrowded Jungle camp is home to nearly 10,000 people who have mostly fled war and strife in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan and Africa with the ultimate goal of reaching Britain.
The Red Cross charity accused Britain on Sunday of leaving hundreds of young children with the right to join family in Britain in limbo in Calais, where the squalid Jungle camp is soon to be dismantled.
Of the estimated 1,000 unaccompanied children who are currently living in the Calais Jungle camp, 178 have been identified as having family ties to the UK, the Red Cross said, adding that this gives them the right to claim asylum in the same country.
Alex Fraser, director of Red Cross refugee support, said in a statement that the system for transferring children who have a right to be in the UK has numerous problems.
"Children, who could be rebuilding their lives in safety with their only surviving relatives, are instead being left to fend for themselves in conditions unimaginable to most adults," he added in the statement.
Calais is one of several spots in Western Europe faced with a huge buildups of migrants as ever-larger numbers of people flee war, persecution and poverty.
More than 11,000 migrants were rescued in the space of just 48 hours last week off the coast of Libya as they sought to cross the sea to Europe. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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