The loss of family reunion rights for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will leave them with “no options” except taking dangerous routes and using smugglers, charities in France and Greece are warning.

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, faced criticism after he told parliament he had dropped a promise to replace the EU law that allows child refugees stranded in Europe to reunite with family members in the UK after Brexit.

Clare Moseley, the director of Care4Calais, said the news was devastating for those working with young asylum-seekers.

“I’m so shocked. This will have a massive impact. Just yesterday I was with an Afghan boy whose mother is dead, his father is in the UK, there is nowhere else that boy should be. The idea that he won’t have that right to join his father at all is horrific. How could anyone think there is anywhere else that boy should be?

“We have many very young Afghan boys here. Some are under 13. Nearly all the young people here are trying to reach family in the UK. That is the only reason anyone would put up with the horrible conditions here.”

Home Office ‘ignoring offers to give homes to child refugees’ Read more

Authorities in Dunkirk and Calais have recently used force to keep the area clear of tents, leaving nowhere for migrants to shelter. Hundreds, including children, sleep rough with no toilets or running water.

Bastien Roland, a lawer supporting young asylum seekers in northern France, said family reunion was a way to persuade vulnerable children to enter the official asylum system.

“We have very young children here in Calais who we worry are being exploited by adults. The family reunion law offers a chance to persuade a young person who is sleeping outside to enter the official system. It is a really key tool to get them out of the jungle. Without family reunion children will put themselves in danger. They will risk injury and death to get to the UK. ”

On Europe’s southern border, in Greece, frontline workers say there needs to be far larger numbers of children brought to the UK.

Sandy Protogerou, the head of the charity Safe Passage in Greece said: “There is no space for these children in Greece, the situation here is horrible. We just recently found a Syrian boy who was trying to go through the Greek asylum system in order to apply to join his brother in the UK. Instead he had been placed in a terrible place, like detention, with really bad conditions.

“Without family reunion there will be no option for a boy like him. He comes from a war zone so he would have no option but to use smugglers to keep moving forward to find his brother.

Even for children who do not have family in other EU countries, she says, “staying here in Greece isn’t proper, there is no space, conditions are horrible, too many minors have arrived over the summer”.

Conditions on the Greek islands for migrants are reported to be catastrophic, as rising numbers of arrivals have put pressure on already overcrowded camps.

More than 50,000 migrants arrived in Greece by sea over 2019. About 17,000 were under 18, 2,600 of them travelling without adults.

On a visit to the Greek islands last month, the UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, called for Europe to do more, particularly for unaccompanied minors.

“Europe has to get its act together,” he said after visiting Lesbos. “[It] has to have a new system that is based on sharing, responsibility sharing. There is a children on-the-move emergency in this country that needs to be tackled.”

The Home Office admitted in September that family reunion would end immediately if there was a no-deal Brexit. But until the latest announcement, campaigners believed that the EU law would be replaced during negotiations for a post-Brexit Britain.

A petition started by two former volunteers from Calais asking the Home Office to save family reunion has gained an extra 25,000 signatures since Johnson made the announcement on Thursday.

There are now 125,000 signatures on the petition , which was started in September after the Guardian reported that family reunion would end if there was a no-deal Brexit.

