Lone children among surge in Sudanese people in Calais camps waiting to reach UK

Sudanese children as young as 14 who fled civil war are arriving alone in Calais’ migrant camps and waiting to try to cross the Channel in small boats to reach the UK.

People from Sudan are now among the largest nationality groups living in the camps in northern France, i has learned.

During a visit to Calais last week, aid workers told i there had been a surge in the number of people from Sudan arriving this winter, having fled the violence which errupted in their country in April 2023.

Women and their young children are among the arrivals hoping to seek asylum in the UK, living in makeshift camps made of tarpaulin and wooden pallets.

“People started arriving around November following the violence breaking out in Khartoum earlier in 2023. Previous to this people had mostly arrived from Darfur,” said Imogen Hardman, an aid worker who has been in Calais since 2019.

“Many said they had fled for their safety after their homes or family were made unsafe by increased violence and shelling of residential areas in Khartoum. People have also spoken about the increase in disease outbreak in the region and lack of access to food or aid.”

Ms Hardman said that many of those living in Calais “are men or unaccompanied minors – as young as 14 in some cases.”

“They are scared of being drafted to fight for either side. However, we know of women and children, including a Sudanese woman and her two young children who have fled since the war broke out and they are now living in a camp in Calais,” she said.

i travelled to the border of Sudan shortly after the war broke out, finding those fleeing the war living in snake-infested refugee camps in neighbouring South Sudan.

A group of Sudanese teenagers pour hand sanitiser onto a fire in a migrant camp in Calais

The civilians revealed chilling details of life in the conflict, with some watching their homes and neighbours get killed in airstrikes and others having to leave elderly parents behind.

The routes civilians took out of Sudan vary, but many of the Sudanese people currently in Calais report travelling from Sudan into neighbouring Chad, or crossing the Sahara into Libya or Tunisia.

From there, many make the dangerous small boat journey across the Mediterranean sea, known as the most dangerous migration route in the world due to the high number of deaths.

i spent three weeks on a search and rescue ship in the Mediterranean, meeting parents including who had lost their children on the route and revealing that women were receiving abortions at sea having been raped on the journey to Europe.

Sudanese teenagers in Calais told i they wanted to reach the UK because they spoke the language, unlike France or other European countries. Others said the experience of life in Calais’ camps had made them want to leave France.

Some of the people living in the camps have developed trench foot after sleeping in their shoes during a cold and wet winter

Several asylum seekers told i they would not be deterred from crossing in a small by the Govrnment’s Rwanda policy, which passed through Parliament this week.

When the Sudanese individuals arrive in Calais, many do not have documents to travel by plane, and there is no visa available to seek asylum.

The UK Government operates a series of UN-led refugee resettlement schemes but it is not possible to apply for these, as individuals are selected by the UN.

French police clear the camps every 48 hours

Tens of thousands of people claim asylum in France, and it is possible for those in Calais’ camps to submit asylum claims there.

Related Article

Gay asylum seeker blasts ‘inhumane’ Rwanda plan after 5,000 mile trip to Calais

NewsFrance Dispatch

Gay asylum seeker blasts ‘inhumane’ Rwanda plan after 5,000 mile trip to Calais

Read More

But some said they did not want to stay in the country because they did not speak the language, while others said the experience of life in Calais’ camps had made them want to leave France.

“Many did not have access to passports in Sudan and therefore left without their documents. It was also reported as the war began that anyone who had tried to apply for a visa through embassies had lost access to the documents, as Embassy staff fled the country,” said Ms Hardman, lead coordinator for Care4Calais.

Ms Hardman said that Calais was a “reflection of the global political situation, with a time lag.”

“When conflict breaks out or a new group of people are the focus of persecution around the world we see those groups arriving here around six months after the event,” she said.

“This was exactly true of Sudanese people fleeing the increased violence. Previously many of the Sudanese people we supported were escaping the conditions in the Darfur region, but now many people we speak to were living in Khartoum and were forced to leave as their homes were destroyed or for fear of being drafted to fight for either the government or opposing forces.

“We saw the exact same trend in 2022 when Afghans started arriving following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Many people we met then and continue to meet today are former veterans who fought alongside the British forces and they and their families now face huge risks staying in the country controlled by the Taliban government.”