Britain will take 200 more unaccompanied child migrants from the Calais Jungle says Amber Rudd – after France accused the Home Office of stalling
France accused the Home Office of stalling as the controversial camp is torn down this week
AFTER the Home Secretary was accused of stalling by the French Amber Rudd has agreed to take 200 more unaccompanied child migrants from the Calais Jungle.
The controversial camp is being torn down this week with thousands of migrants being sent to centres across France.
But there has been pressure on the UK to accept more children – despite the row over whether some of those who arrived this week were actually under-18.
The reported that the Élysée Palace was furious Britain had “engaged in extremely difficult negotiations on a case-by-case basis [for each migrant]”, saying we were trying to delay the process of bringing the youths over here.
But yesterday Ms Rudd blamed the French, and announced after “several hundred more” child migrants would be given asylum in the coming weeks.
The newspaper said Britain will now be offering a home to around 650 unaccompanied children from the Jungle, up from the previous Home Office estimate of about 450.
Over the past fortnight more than 200 child migrants are believed to have arrived from Calais, including more than 60 girls at high risk of sexual exploitation.
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Speaking in the Commons yesterday Ms Rudd said: “The government has sought every opportunity to expedite the process to transfer children to the UK.
“My officials were only given access to the camp to interview children in the last week, and similarly we have only recently received agreement from the French government that we could bring Dubs cases [children with no family connection in Britain] to the UK.”
She added: “Before this we worked closely with the French behind the scenes but without their agreement it was not possible to make progress on taking non-family cases from Calais.”
The Home Secretary also pledged £36million of extra funds for security, lighting and fencing in Calais, as police began destroying the makeshift settlement close to the border.
France's ambassador to the UK has insisted the country will not tolerate another Jungle camp springing up in its place.
Sylvie Bermann said the French government wants to show migrants that the port city is a "blind alley" which will not gain them access to Britain.
She told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "The government is determined to stop people coming back to Calais. We won't let them come. It has to be clear that Calais is a blind alley, and you can't come to this country. If they are refugees they will go to other centres.
"We will leave policemen there for the time being. There are more than 2,000 policemen there."