Urgent solutions for refugee and migrant children in Calais ‘long overdue’ – UNICEF

With the imminent clearance of the Calais camp and wet winter weather fast approaching, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Crisis in Europe, said today that the commitment by the United Kingdom and France to find urgent solutions for the hundreds of refugee and migrant children languishing there for months, “could not come a minute too soon.”

“It is good news indeed that many of the children will be given a new home and new hope in the UK in the days to come,” Marie Pierre Poirier, said,” also welcoming the commitment in France, to find solutions for the other refugee and migrant children who will remain in France. “This too is long overdue,” she added.

UNICEF said that some 1,200 children that have been living in Calais camp facing abuse, exploitation and road accidents while living in horrible conditions.

The agency stresses that the children will experience enormous relief when they are finally given a proper home, care, an education and a future, and that will be provided to those who remain in France as well as those who are going to the UK.

According to Mrs. Poirier: “We, at UNICEF, together with our many partners who have long been lobbying on their behalf, will share the children’s relief when governments on both sides of the English Channel fully heed the calls made by the many local activists and volunteers, NGOs, including the French and UK National Committees of UNICEF, and international bodies, for lasting solutions to care for refugee and migrant children.”