Uncertainty for Calais kids on UK ‘transfers’
Disaster boat skipper jailed
PARIS, Dec 14, (AFP): France on Tuesday denied reports that Britain has stopped taking in migrant children relocated from Calais, saying London has taken in over 450 minors since the “Jungle” camp was razed and that the transfers were “going well”.
The French interior ministry said Britain had accepted 866 unaccompanied minors since the start of 2016, 468 of whom were whisked across the Channel after the sprawling Jungle was demolished in late October.
“The cooperation is going well,” the ministry said, denying reports that Britain had pulled up the drawbridge on children who had travelled to Calais in the hope of reaching England. French authorities in October cleared the squalid camp near Calais port and moved the thousands of migrants -- mostly Afghans, Eritreans and Sudanese -- who had been living there to shelters nationwide. They included around 1,900 minors.
Britain, which had already begun taking some of the children, assured at the time it would take hundreds more, without committing to an exact figure.
Last week, British immigration minister Robert Goodwill said his government had welcomed over 750 children -- a figure lower than that given by the French.
A spokeswoman for Britain’s Home Office interior ministry told AFP Tuesday the transfer of Calais children was “continuing” but declined to say how many would be admitted.
“The first phase of transfers has concluded but that is not the end of the process. More eligible children will be transferred from across Europe in the coming months,” she said.
Of those children given shelter so far, “many” had joined family members, she said.
Admission
Last month, Britain tightened the admission criteria for unaccompanied migrant children without family in Britain, saying the child must be 12 or under, or run a high risk of sexual exploitation.
The threshold for Syrian and Sudanese children was lower, with children of up to 15 years declared eligible.
A spokeswoman for Safe Passage, a charity that supports refugees coming to Britain, said: “Our understanding is that the transfers have stopped at 750.”
Although the government said the transfers are ongoing, these are on a “child-by-child” basis, the spokeswoman said, with each case potentially taking “months” to process.
Before the Jungle was cleared, French President Francois Hollande had appealed to Britain to fulfil its “moral duty” towards migrants trying to reach Britain, where many have contacts or speak the language.
Dozens of migrants have died trying to climb onto trucks heading to Calais port to cross to England. French charities have warned that a closure of Britain’s asylum channels could see children once again put their lives on the line.
Genevieve Jacques, head of the migrant charity Cimade, said she feared they would run away from the migrant shelters back to Calais and called on France to “take a tougher tone” with Britain.
France and Britain have tried to make the Calais site less attractive for migrants, erecting a wall that officials said late Monday had been completed.
The four-metre-high (13-foot) wall runs along a kilometre-long stretch of the main road leading to Calais port, next to the area that used to house the sprawling camp.
The concrete barrier -- estimated to cost 2.7 million euros ($3 million) -- aims to prevent new arrivals stowing away on trucks bound for Britain.
An Italian court ruled Tuesday that the captain of a migrant boat that sank in 2015, killing up to 900 people, was responsible for the disaster, the Mediterranean’s worst since World War II.
Judges in the Sicilian port city of Catania ordered Mohammed Ali Malek, a Tunisian national, to serve 18 years in jail for multiple manslaughter, human trafficking and causing the tragedy after the packed boat capsized after colliding with a freighter coming to its aid.
Tragedy
Syrian Mahmoud Bikhit, accused of being his first mate, was handed a five-year sentence for his role in the tragedy off the Libyan coast. Italian forensic scientists spent months sorting through decomposed body parts to count the victims.
The men were ordered to pay nine million euros ($9.5 million) each in compensation.
Both had claimed they were simple migrants and had been made to steer the boat by the real traffickers.
But survivors told investigators that Malek, who had lived in Italy in the past, was the captain. And that it was his lack of sailing skills that caused the deadly collision.
“I spent two years and six months in Italy and I have a young son with an Italian woman: I want to marry her and recognise the baby,” Malek told the court in a plea before the verdict.
“It’s the truth. I’ve always told the truth. Just as I immediately gave (police) my real name, and told them I was a passenger,” he said.
The boat was carrying people largely from The Gambia, Senegal and Mali, as well as Bangladesh, the Ivory Coast and Ethiopia. Only 28 survived.
Up to 900 people were packed into the 27-metre (90-foot) boat when it left Libya.
While prosecutors have put the number of victims at around 700 because there are 700 body bags, forensic scientists who examined the remains put the number at closer to 900, saying many bags contained pieces of more than one person.
Malek’s lawyer Massimo Ferrante told AFP his client had been “naturally shocked by the verdict, but told me he wants to fight”. They will be appealing, he said. Firefighters who recovered the mangled bodies from the rotting ship said they had been “packed in like on the trains for Auschwitz”.
The Sicilian court heard from a survivor who lost relatives on the night of the April 18-19 wreck.
The vessel sank in pitch darkness after running into the Portuguese freighter King Jacob which had raced to its rescue, the collision sending its passengers over to one side and causing the vessel to tip over.