Warnings as Calais migrant camps cleared by French authorities
As French police removed the temporary camps outside Calais, the Refugee Council warned that closing the camps was not a long-term solution to the problem unless accompanied by dramatically improved arrangements to identify vulnerable refugees and closer working between European countries.
132 children were detained in the raid. The Refugee Council visited the site in May 2009 and expressed its concerns about vulnerable people in the camps to the media. Gemma Juma, Head of International and UK Policy at the Refugee Council, said: "We need to make sure all of those children are safe and properly looked after. If this means, in a small number of cases, bringing them to the UK to be reunited with friends and family then, as an option, that should not be ruled out."
Chief Executive of the Refugee Council, Donna Covey, said: “We hope that all the people, including the very vulnerable, like women and children on their own who are trying to get to a place of safety, are given access to an asylum system. This is a European-wide problem which needs a solution at European level.”
Read the full Refugee Council press release
BBC News: Video: Refugee Council on camp closure
BBC News: UK should help Calais migrants
CBBC Newsround: Video: Refugee camp in France is closed
Independent: French to chop down the Calais ‘Jungle’
The Guardian: The Calais camps will not go away
The Guardian: Comment: There will be no ‘invasion’ from ‘jungle camps’
The Guardian: Editorial: Immigration: Think first, act later
The Daily Telegraph: Comment: This tide of despair has only just begun
Daily Mail: New squalid migrant camps pop up in Calais hours after the Jungle is razed as migrants insist: We'll STILL reach the UK
Financial Times: Refugee groups attack police clearance of Calais camp
Yorkshire Post: Praise as Jungle Camp is shut down
DNA tests on asylum seekers planned by UK Border Agency
The UK Border Agency is planning to take voluntary DNA samples from asylum seekers they suspect of ‘abusing the asylum system’, according to a report in the Observer.
The scheme will be initially launched as a pilot on people who fail language analysis testing.
Caroline Slocock of Refugee and Migrant Justice said: “There are obvious pitfalls in trying to prove nationality genetically.”
The Observer: Anger over DNA tests on asylum seekers
Stop detaining children, charities tell MPs
Giving evidence to a Home affairs select committee hearing on the detention of children, representatives from the Children’s Society and Bail for Immigration Detainees (BID) spoke of many cases of trauma experienced by children who had been detained.
29% of children in detention at the end of June 2009 had been there for over 29 days. Amanda Shah, policy director at BID, said: "The statistics reveal the myth that children with families are only detained for very short periods of time."
Community Care: Children's Society: End detention of asylum children
Children and Young People Now:Asylum seeking children detained for more than a month
Children’s Commissioner complains to UK Border Agency about treatment of Ugandan family
The Children’s Commissioner for England, Sir Al Aynsley-Green has complained to UKBA about their handling of the removal of a Ugandan asylum seeker, Elizabeth Kiwunga and her two British born children, after reports that the two children had been separated from their mother during the removal process.
The Northern Echo: Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the Children’s Commissioner complained to UK Border Agency about ordeal of British born children
Age dispute leaves young asylum seeker on the streets
Community Care looked in detail at a case where a young asylum seeker had been sleeping rough after the Home Office and local authority disagreed about his age. Neither was willing to take responsibility for his welfare.
Blessing, 16, one of the young people who is being helped by the Refugee Council Children’s Panel, joined the panel to give her opinion on what should be done to help him.
Community Care: Practice Panel: Young asylum seeker on the streets after dispute over age between Home Office and local authority
