‘A lot of controversy’ around resettling Calais ’jungle’ refugees

The British and French governments are in a difficult situation over relocating the refugees from the ‘jungle’ camp in Calais, said Sanwar Ali, editor at workpermit.com, adding that the UK could have done more to deal with its responsibilities.

Britain and France are trying to determine the fate of child refugees from the 'jungle' camp in Calais as it is about to be dismantled early next week. The fate of many of the camp’s residents still remains unclear.

French President Francois Hollande says Britain should take equal responsibility to resettle them.

The UK has agreed to take hundreds of unaccompanied migrant children from the refugee camp.

Meanwhile, the UK Home Office has released a report saying that two-thirds of claimants appear to be older that they said. The document says that out of 900 refugees whose ages were disputed, 68 percent were deemed to be adults. And in the decade up to June 2016, nearly half of the applicants checked were also proved to be over 18.

The disclosure comes, as a second group of child migrants arrives in Britain.

A number of UK Conservative MPs have called for dental checks of refugees arriving from Calais in order to verify their age. The Home Office ruled out dental checks for Calais refugees as “unethical” and “inaccurate.”

“There has been a lot of controversy over that. I think the consensus is that it is going too far imposing such checks. There has been condemnation from the British Dental Association and other organizations. So overall it is unjust forcing people to have these checks. Indeed the British government I believe is not doing so. So that is a good thing,” Sanwar Ali told RT.

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Home Office rules out forcing dental checks on child refugees to prove age

 In his opinion, the Home Office could spend more time on their own checks and interviewing people.

“They are doing that, but there is some concern among the newspapers, the public, and politicians in the UK that perhaps the checks are not very satisfactory. I don’t think that morally they can do the dental checks, but they could do other checks requiring perhaps more time. That is something that hopefully will happen,” he said.

According to Ali, both the French and the British governments are in a difficult situation.

“France is resettling many refugees. The reason why they are closing down the camp in Calais is because they have had some success of resettling refugees. The UK also has great responsibilities, and the UK is doing many things to try and deal with the responsibilities. However, I think many people have also criticized the UK for not doing enough. So perhaps more can be done,” he added.