French president François Hollande on Saturday hit back at the UK as the row between the two countries over the fate of hundreds of unaccompanied children still living in the Calais migrant camp became increasingly acrimonious.
Confirming that 5,000 people had so far been evacuated, Hollande said 1,500 remaining unaccompanied minors, housed in a camp made from shipping containers, would be transferred swiftly to reception centres around France.
The announcement dismayed charities which warned the dispersal policy could mean that many children, frightened and distrustful of the move, might attempt to run away.
It also appeared to be a marked change in policy to the one agreed with the UK. Home Office officials had expected to process the children’s applications in Calais. However, a source said “the French have pulled the plug” on the scheme.
Volunteers at the camp said they had been told that Home Office officials who had been on site all week would be leaving the camp on Monday.
“We had to rise to the challenge of the refugee issue,” Hollande said during a visit to a reception centre in Doué-la-Fontaine in western France.
“We could not tolerate the camp and we will not tolerate any others. There are 1,500 unaccompanied minors left in Calais and they will be very quickly dispatched to other centres.”
Hollande said he had spoken with Theresa May to ensure that British officials would “accompany these minors to these centres and would play their part in subsequently welcoming them to the United Kingdom”.
“Their transfer to Britain is urgent,” he added. “We ask you to take your responsibilities and assume your moral duty by immediately organising their arrival.”
Ginny Howells, emergencies manager with Save the Children, who is at the camp, warned that transporting the unaccompanied children to reception centres around France could backfire.
“We want children to be going to child-appropriate accommodation but our huge concern is that these children will become a massive flight risk. In the last eviction in March we had 129 children go missing. We know that more children have already run away. We know that if you bus a child to somewhere else in France the risk is that they lose faith that they can get to the UK.”
She added: “I’ve spoken to children who say: ‘I don’t trust this bus I don’t know where it’s going, I’m going to jump on the back of a lorry, I’m going to try the train tracks.’
“We say to them you can still do your family reunification application wherever you are in France. We’ve managed to convince a few children but more have become so disillusioned they don’t trust the French officials, so they run.”
Clare Moseley, founder of British charity Care4Calais, expressed concern for those children who had already been evacuated. “We are worried about what happens next – there will be a multitude of small camps where conditions are even worse than in the Jungle.”
Charities said the situation for those remaining in the camp was proving extremely difficult. Calais Action said at least 14 children were left on the site on Friday night with nowhere to go. Some children were having to be housed in makeshift accommodation outside the container camp which has now been bulldozed
“It is horrific now,” said Lally Mergler, a volunteer with the women and children’s centre in the camp.
“There are burned-out gas canisters, rubbish everywhere, a lot of rats, and this is where the children are going in and out of the container camp. We would like Britain to step up to the plate and take the children it is supposed to take and the French to help out with the others, but neither side seems to want to do anything.”
“We had three Eritrean boys, two aged 13, one aged 14, and we could not identify any sort of official accommodation for them,” Howells said. “We had to say to them, ‘we can’t find you a bed for the night’. That’s completely unacceptable.”
The problem of how to care for the children has become a source of bitter division between France and the UK. Last Monday home secretary Amber Rudd complained that her officials had been given access to the camp only in the previous week. Her claims were rejected by French officials.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “At the request of the French we have moved UK staff out of the Calais camp this weekend but we remain fully engaged and committed to working alongside the French authorities and NGOs to ensure we are able to continue transferring eligible children to the UK.”