UK to Remove Children From Calais if France Provides Necessary Information

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The United Kingdom will transfer unaccompanied migrant children from the Calais refugee camp "within a few days" if France presents the list of persons allowed to transfer under the Dublin Regulation, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said on Monday.

Earlier in the day, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve called on the UK government to reunite migrant children from the Calais camp with their families in the United Kingdom.

"If we have all the information from the French, which we expect to get during the next week or so before they actually clear the camps, we will move very quickly within a few days and remove those children when we can," Rudd said, speaking in the House of Commons.

The secretary also urged France to present a list of those persons, who are eligible to transfer under the Dublin Regulation.

The 1990 Dublin Regulation, signed by all EU members, stipulates that the first EU member country entered by a refugee is responsible for processing their asylum application. After the migration crisis escalated in 2015, some EU countries called for the system to be amended as it leads to a disproportionate amount of migrants in peripheral EU member states that cannot handle the influx.

On October 3, a group of 10 UK Conservative Party lawmakers wrote to Rudd, urging her to help refugee minors, who live in squalid conditions in the migrant camp.

The camp, located not far from the English Channel, is seen as a gateway to the United Kingdom by thousands of undocumented migrants.

According to estimates by the l'Auberge des Migrants/Help Refugees charity, as of early August, Calais had more than 9,000 residents, including 865 minors, of whom 676 were unaccompanied children.