UK urged to take in 400 refugee children from Calais ‘Jungle’ camp

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Campaigners say they have identified almost 400 refugee children living in the camp in Calais known as the Jungle who are eligible to come to the UK.
They are urging Home Secretary Amber Rudd to accept the children – many of whom reportedly have family in Britain.
The list is to be handed in at the Home Office, marking the anniversary of the drowning of three-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi one year ago.
The Home Office says it already plans to transfer 150 children this year.
Most vulnerable
Celebrities including Juliet Stevenson and Vanessa Redgrave, religious leaders and local politicians will gather outside the Home Office later to urge ministers to immediately bring over hundreds of children stranded in the sprawling migrant camp.
There are 800 unaccompanied children among some 7,000 refugees living in the camp, according to the campaign group Citizens UK.
The group has drawn up a list of 387 who it says are eligible to be transferred to the UK.
They include 178 refugee children who have the right to come to the UK under an EU rule known as the Dublin III regulation because of their close family links in the country; and a further 209 eligible under an immigration provision known as the Dubs Amendment.
The amendment to the Immigration Act originally put forward by Lord Dubs requires the government to arrange for the transfer to the UK and support of unaccompanied refugee children from Europe.

Lord Dubs, the Labour peer and long-time refugee campaigner, who came to Britain as a child on the Kindertransport programme to escape Nazi persecution, said: “I am deeply saddened that despite repeated calls from me and others, the government still seems to be dragging its feet on the commitments it made when the amendment in my name was accepted.
“Now that the new government has had some weeks to settle in after the EU referendum vote there really is no excuse for any further delay. Theresa May and Amber Rudd should be taking immediate action.”

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