The Home Office says it is in “active discussions” with the UNHCR and Italian, Greek and French governments to “speed up mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer refugee children to the UK where this is in their best interests.” But no children have come as a result of the Dubs commitment.
“I was shocked that nothing had happened despite the amendment. There are more people than ever, and the conditions are as awful as ever – children living in shacks, in tents very makeshift, with just one meal a day, often not enough to eat, with no support system except for the volunteers, left to their own devices,” Dubs says.
“Visually, it is pretty awful, hemmed in, with barbed wire along the motorway; what it will be like in the cold and winter, I shudder to think. Human beings can’t survive indefinitely like this. No wonder there is violence in the camp, no wonder they are so desperate to escape. It is not surprising they are doing everything they can to get across the Channel. In their position, I would be doing the same.”
He is reluctant to overstate the similarities between his own experience as a child fleeing war and the ordeal confronting many of these children, but he recognises that his campaign has been given moral weight by his timely reminder of how much Britain had helped Jewish children fleeing the Nazis.
“It was important, politically, to remember that Britain had set a strong humanitarian example in 1938, which undoubtedly saved the lives of many people who would otherwise have ended up in the gas chambers,” he says.
…Dubs leaves the camp determined to keep fighting to ensure that at least some of the children are helped. “These kids are having a terrible time. There’s no safety, no security. The situation we saw today is terrible. It is a disgrace to Europe to have 9,000 people with so many children living in those conditions.”
The humanity!
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