LONDON // As bulldozers raze the sprawling camp in the northern French port city of Calais this week, busloads of children have been arriving in Britain. With the UK promising to take in hundreds more, local authorities face the challenge of resettling these youngsters - many of whom have fled war and poverty in countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Sudan. But the children are not always welcome everywhere.
According to some reports, one in four local municipalities have refused to take in any children of the migrant camp known as the Jungle.
However one London borough council, Hammersmith and Fulham, has taken a different view and hopes to encourage others to follow suit.
Council leader Stephen Cowan was profoundly affected when he visited the camp with other London officials in August.
"You had this acute urine stench that hit you in the back of the throat," he said, describing the "dusty, intimidating environment".
One child in particular struck him: a 9-year-old boy from Afghanistan who was "shivering" despite the summer heat.
"He looked overcome with stress. I asked the interpreter why he was shivering and he said: 'This boy has been driven mad by fear'."
The boy told Mr Cowan: "I want somewhere where I will be safe at night and I will not be hurt anymore."
Deeply shocked and moved by the encounter, Mr Cowan pledged that his west London borough would find homes for such vulnerable children under the so-called Dubs Amendment. Named after the parliamentarian Al Dubs who arrived in Britain in 1938 as a six-year-old child refugee from the Nazi-occupied Prague, the agreement allows vulnerable children into Britain even if they have no family ties in the country.
A week before the camp was razed, the borough sent 13 social workers to Calais to assess the needs of unaccompanied minors.
Social worker Rebecca Harvey recalled "chaotic" scenes as they arrived the day after police used tear gas during clashes at the camp.
She and her colleagues worked with an interpreter to take down key details: where the children were from, their state of mind and health, and hopes for the future.
One 13-year-old boy said he had left his home in Afghanistan after his father was beheaded and his mother shot dead in front of him by jihadists.
"He was living in a tent with a man he didn't know and crying all the time," said Ms Harvey. "He said he just thought every day 'maybe it would be better if I threw myself under a lorry and I didn't have to suffer anymore'. His story was not unique by any stretch of the imagination."
Since mid-October, more than 200 children have arrived in Britain from Calais and more transfers are due in the coming days, says the Home Office, the UK interior ministry. French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve has said all minors "with proven family links in Britain" will eventually be transferred there, and that London has committed to reviewing all other cases where it is "in the child's interest" to settle across the Channel.
Fifteen children will be going to Hammersmith and Fulham. The first batch - five boys aged 11 and 12 - arrived on Thursday. After registering for asylum, they were placed immediately into foster care and will now have access to education, health care, English language tuition and other support services.
Taking 15 of 1,500 children housed temporarily in shipping containers in the Jungle may not seem like many. But Hammersmith and Fulham hopes its example will encourage other local authorities to follow suit, as Paris and London squabble over who is to blame for the children's plight.
Mr Cowan does not even have unanimous support from residents in his own borough but is undeterred. The challenge now is to find "safe houses" in Britain, France or elsewhere in Europe for "every single one" of the 1,500 children remaining in Calais, he said.
"Those children cannot be allowed to get lost."
* Agence France Presse
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