‘16-year-old’ refugee who says he’s 22 on dating site
And university says he studied for a degree three years ago
THE family of a ‘child migrant’ described as a 22-year- old on a dating website insist that his older brother borrowed his photo because he was better looking.
The uncle of Haris Stanikzai – who arrived in London from the Calais Jungle on October 17 – issued the bizarre explanation as Haris denied pretending to be 16 to exploit asylum rules and gain entry to Britain.
The controversy deepened last night when social media profiles set up in Haris’s name appeared to show he enrolled in a university course in Kabul in 2013.
His apparent ‘outing’ as an adult follows widespread concerns about the age of unaccompanied child migrants who were brought over from the notorious camp to live with family members in the UK.
Many appeared older than teenagers, prompting calls for the migrants to undergo dental tests to determine their ages.
Over the weekend it was reported that Haris’s photo was on a LinkedIn profile and a dating website which claimed he was 22. His uncle Jan Ghazi said Haris’s brother Hamid, who died last year, had used the photo on the dating profile because Haris was better looking. He added that Hamid may have put his name on the account as a joke.
On arriving in Britain, Haris told reporters he had escaped the Taliban in Afghanistan after all five of his siblings were killed.
He said: ‘This information is false information. My age is the age I have on my Afghan ID which has been issued from the official ministry in Afghanistan. The dating profile was made a long time ago by my brother. It was made more than two years ago in Afghanistan.’
Mr Ghazi, who works in a pizza takeaway in Wallington, south London, added: ‘His older brother put Haris’s picture to impress girls. Because Haris looks younger and probably because his eyes are more beautiful than his brother’s.
‘Haris Stanikzai was not registered to that university – it was his brother who put his name and picture on LinkedIn.’
Two LinkedIn profiles claim Haris studied accounting and finance at Jahan University from 2013 to 2016, while an internet dating profile described him as a 22-year-old, it was reported. Mr Ghazi said Haris had tried to enrol in English classes at a night school connected to the university in 2014, but two university officials separately confirmed to The Sunday Times that Haris had enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in business administration more than three years ago.
One of the officials, who recognised Haris from his photograph, said he ‘disappeared’ shortly after the start of his fourth semester.
Mr Ghazi said although it was not ‘humane’, he would be happy for Haris to have a dental test to prove his age. Jahan University was not available for comment last night. The Home Office said it did not comment on individual cases.
It came as the opening of the first official refugee camp in Paris was postponed amid fears it will be ‘swamped’ by thousands of UKbound migrants.
Designed to provide beds for 400 men, the £5.5 million project was scheduled to welcome its first residents last week.
But this coincided with the closure of the Jungle camp, and up to 3,000 refugees are now living rough in illegal tent settlements near the Gare du Nord Eurostar hub in the north of the French capital. ‘The fear is that they will all head to the official centre as soon as it opens,’ a city council source told the Mail. ‘Those rejected could easily end up swamping the streets around it, causing even more problems.’
Eva Crepin, 68, who has lived in a nearby block of flats for 23 years, said: ‘It’s a very stupid idea. You shouldn’t put 400 men in their position alone in the same place.
‘It might put people in danger. It reminds me of a concentration camp or a Brazilian shanty town.’