Court hears challenge by four Syrian children seeking to be reunited with their families
The Observer reported on Sunday that lawyers and campaigners had identified more than 200 people living in the "Jungle" refugee and migrant camp in the French port of Calais as being entitled to claim asylum in Britain on the grounds that they have close family members in the UK.
According to the Observer, a court yesterday heard a legal challenge on behalf of four Syrian children seeking to be reunited with their families.
The children's lawyers argue that a clause in the Dublin Regulation has the effect of allowing refugees to claim asylum in an EU Member State where they have close family members.
One of the children is a 12-year-old Syrian boy who says the only close family member he is able to locate is his eldest brother living in Manchester.
The Observer says that the campaign group Citizens UK helped organise the investigations to find those in Calais with potential claims to protection in the UK.
The Reverend Keith Hebden, a spokesperson for Citizens UK, told the Observer: "In three hours we found dozens of people with valid legal claims to find protection in Britain – children needing their parents, husbands separated from wives. David Cameron must take some responsibility and sort out the chaos in Calais. Winter has arrived, temperatures are dropping and we must act to create safe legal routes."
Zrinka Bralo of the migrant and refugee charity the Forum said: "The British government can have no excuse for sitting on its hands. There are hundreds of vulnerable people in need of protection, which they have a full legal right to find in Britain."
A Home Office spokesperson told the Observer: "We will not shoulder the burden of asylum claims which should rightly be considered by other countries.
"We firmly believe in the established principle, enshrined in the Dublin Regulation, that those in need of protection should seek asylum in the first safe country they enter."
According to the Observer, more than 6,000 people now live in the "Jungle" refugee camp in Calais, with conditions described as desperate.