Volunteer says teenagers who were taken from camp in October were led to believe they would be considered for asylum

A group of 12 teenagers cleared from the Calais migrant camp have gone on partial hunger strike over the Home Office’s apparent decision to end transfers to the UK.

The unaccompanied minors from Syria, Eritrea and Sudan were interviewed by the Home Office four weeks ago and have decided to stage the protest after they read in British and French newspapers that the process of reuniting refugee children with family members in the UK had ended.

They are refusing to eat breakfast, lunch or dinner, refusing medical care and refusing to go to the French and English language classes laid on for them at the temporary reception centre where they are staying.

“They have heard nothing, they have been left in the dark,” said Orsi Hardi, a volunteer. “The day before yesterday they told us they were not going to eat their meals. They were very clear. They said they would not eat until they have a clear answer from the Home Office what their case is.”

Home Office stops transfer of Calais child refugees to UK Read more

The boys, aged between 14 and 17, were bussed from Calais to a Christian religious retreat near the Swiss border at the end of October and were led to believe they would be considered for asylum applications in the UK.

“When they arrived they were positive and hopeful. They had been told by UK officials in Calais that they should be patient, that they would deal with their requests. They were reassuring and gave them a home. Then we gave them the same talk, told them to be patient, that they could rest after their life in tents and the Home Office would be in contact,” Hardi said.

The minors’ hopes were raised on 15 November when a team of 12 Home Office officials arrived at the centre in Taizé.

“The Home Office team arrived, they were very reassuring, very encouraging, they stayed here for a whole day, they had lunch with the boys. We all sat around together. We wanted them to hear their stories, because all they had done in the interviews was ask for their name, their ID, their family. The boys were full of hope and full of joy and were singing. It was like a feast.”

The volunteer said they had been in touch with the local prefecture who told them they had no information from the Home Office.

Their hopes were raised again last week when four other boys in the centre – a 15-year-old Sudanese, a 16- and a 17-year-old Sudanese and one 17-year-old Syrian – were flown to the UK.



Three appear to have been transferred under the Dublin regulation, an EU law that allows for an unaccompanied minor to have their asylum processed in another EU country where they have family. One did not have family in the UK.

“They thought: if he is accepted, then we will all be accepted,” Hardi said. “They began getting their clothes ready, packing their bags and every morning they get up and say: ‘This is the day, I will be taken to the UK.’”

Two of the boys left behind, aged 14 and 16, were in the Calais camp for a year and eight months. Neither can understand why they have been left in France when they have brothers in the UK and one of them was interviewed three times by the Home Office.

Charities have repeatedly expressed concern that the lack of information is fuelling further anxiety and psychological distress for children who have already been traumatised by their journey to France, often via criminal people smugglers.

Social Workers Without Borders, which has been monitoring the fate of 40 children it assessed in the Calais camp, including some of those in Taizé, said only three of them had been transferred to the UK.

Charities fear the teenagers will disappear and set up new camps on the French shoreline in an attempt to cross the Channel illegally. In November, 44 minors ran away from a reception centre in Le Havre.

Last week the Home Office transfers of unaccompanied minors who were registered in the Calais refugee camp stopped, meaning up to 1,000 children are unlikely to be given sanctuary in the UK.

The immigration minister, Robert Goodwill, said more than 750 refugee children from Calais had arrived in the UK. Officials said all the children taken from the camp in early November had been interviewed and those eligible to enter the UK had been moved.

The Home Office said: “The remaining children are safe and in the care of the French authorities. We are working closely with the French authorities to ensure that children remaining in France are provided with information on how to claim asylum there.”

