The children who will be affected by the decision to close the Dubs scheme that offered sanctuary to vulnerable young refugees have voiced their despair at the news that they will no longer be welcome in the UK.
After it became clear that the government had decided to bring the programme to an end after taking only 350 refugees rather than the thousands that were initially suggested, the Guardian spoke to youths who have been accommodated in refugee centres across France, and those who care for them. They painted a bleak portrait of the children’s prospects now that their hopes of legally entering the UK have been dashed.
‘I don’t know how the UK government can sleep after what they have done to us’
One Sudanese boy, Abdul, who has hung on in a reception centre near Toulouse hoping to get a positive response to his appeal, said he was shocked and saddened by the announcement.
“I don’t know how the UK government can sleep after what they have done to us. We all agreed to go and wait in the reception centres because we believed that after staying there for a short time we would be taken to the UK. Now what choice do we have but to go back to Calais, the place we were told the French and UK government did not want us to be, and try again to get to the UK illegally? There are 12 boys waiting here. I think we will all do the same thing.”
‘How can I tell Moubrak? He just wants to be with me’
Mohamed Adam Hamad Ahamed, a Sudanese radiographer living in Liverpool after fleeing Darfur, says he fears for the future of his refugee teenage brother Moubrak. The 17-year-old is in “bad condition” psychologically, Mohamed said. “This is a big problem,” he said, fighting back tears. “How can I tell Moubrak? He is in a bad condition. Every time I talk to him he cries. He just wants to be with me.”
Moubrak’s hopes of being looked after by his brother have been repeatedly raised and dashed in the last year. He was interviewed twice by the Guardian last year and appeared to be having difficulty coping with his situation, withdrawn and tearful. He said he was told he was “too tall” to be under 18 and no attempt was made by the Home Office to check the international age certificate signed by the internationally recognised head of Darfur refugees and displaced peoples camp. “When I speak to him he just cries. What am I going to say to him?” Mohamed asked.
‘Even though the UK has treated us so badly I still want to get there because I have a brother there’
Altaj, a 17-year-old Sudanese boy in Biscarrosse, said that many of the boys at his reception centre had already left as a result of the news. “The reception centre looks so dark now because so many boys have left already,” he said. “We will go to Paris first and then try to get to the UK from Belgium. Even though the UK has treated us so badly I still want to get there because I have a brother there and I want to be with my family.
“It is now about one year and seven months since I arrived in Calais. I travelled in a plastic boat from Libya to Italy, and it was very dangerous. We had to be rescued in the sea. I managed to escape from Sudan, I escaped from the militias in Libya, my uncle in Libya paid the smuggler to put me on the boat to Italy, but after waiting so long and hoping to come to the UK I got nowhere.”
Altaj has kept in touch with the Guardian via WhatsApp messages in recent months and has sent many desperate and despairing messages since being placed in the reception centre. In one message he wrote of the UK government: “These people are hard to believe. They don’t sound positive in their life. All they do is try to destroy the Sudanese till finishing all of them one by one … I’m worried they might kick us outside the center coz it happens already in many centers, nobody wants you neither the Home Office nor France government.” He signed off with images of lorries, boys running and the union jack.
‘They think life will be better in England and they will try to find ways to get there’
Taher, 13, is from Eritrea. He spent two to three months in Calais and is one of the 36 children still in France on behalf of whom Duncan Lewis solicitors are bringing a challenge against the Home Office. The lawyers argue that Taher and others have the right to come to the UK.
“The government’s announcement yesterday that no more boys can come is just not fair,” he said. “For now I am going to stay in France, but I will wait to see what happens when my solicitor goes to court for me. I still want to come to UK. All the boys are very sad. They think life will be better for them in England than in France, and they will try to find ways to get there.”
‘The English were so kind and helpful ... I am very sad for all the boys left in France’
On the other side of the Channel, Hassan, 16, spoke of his gratitude to the difference that getting into the UK under the Dubs scheme has made to his life. He was brought to the UK from Calais in October, and is now living with a foster family in Shrewsbury.
“My life has been going much better since I came to the UK,” he said. “The foster family I’m living with is very kind to me and they are supporting me. My living conditions are much better than they were in the Calais camp where I was living for about eight months. Things were very hard there. I am at college now and I’m studying English and maths.”
He misses his friends and family from Calais and Sudan, he says – but he is profoundly grateful for the generosity of his British hosts. “One of the reasons why I wanted to come to the UK while I was in Calais was because there were many English volunteers there and they were so kind and helpful to us and gave us many things like food and clothes,” he said. “The French authorities in Calais didn’t help us at all. Now that I’m England I feel safe at last.”
As a result, the news of the change to the rules has struck home. “I was very sad to hear the government’s announcement yesterday that no more children will be coming to the UK,” Hassan said. “I am very sad for all the boys left in France who thought the Home Office would bring them to the UK. They are suffering now. I know that some of my friends in France will now go to new camps and try to go to England from there. But these camps are not like Calais was and there will be no one there to help them. They will be struggling by themselves to try to reach the UK and it will be dangerous for them. I know I am very lucky that I was allowed to come here in a safe way.”
View all comments >