Hello
This time last year, campaigners were celebrating as Britain finally agreed to provide a safe haven for hundreds of vulnerable lone child refugees stuck in camps in Europe.
What happened to them? Certainly some have landed well and are thriving. But an investigation by Harriet Grant published this morning has found that many others are facing long delays with their asylum cases, inadequate care and a bewildering future in the UK.
Charities say the bureaucracy wasn’t ready to deal with the influx. Some of the children have been waiting six months or more to hear whether, having been rescued from the horrors of the Calais camp, they will now be allowed to stay in the UK.
Others have been lodged with family members here. But in some cases that means distant uncles or relatives they barely know, in accommodation not suitable for a makeshift family. One 14-year-old Syrian boy ended up sleeping on the floor; another resorted to sleeping rough when his adult relative could not support him.
Lord Alf Dubs, the peer whose amendment paved the way for the safe haven operation, told Harriet: “I thought it would be a smooth process and in some areas it was. It went well so I’m dismayed that didn’t happen everywhere.”
In separate news, some of you might remember the case of Paradzai Nkomo, an articulate, intelligent Zimbabwean woman stuck in a particularly hellish form of asylum limbo in which she could not stay in Britain, but could not leave either.
Nkomo wrote to us last week to tell us that her latest asylum claim has been rejected.
Mark Rice-Oxley
Head of special projects
