Children under the age of 10 are crossing the Channel alone in small boats, data reveals.
Eight children under 10 and seven aged 10 made the journey from France to England unaccompanied this year, according to social care records from Kent County Council seen by The i Paper.
The records also show 45 children aged between 11 and 13 crossed the Channel, as well as 125 youngsters aged 14 and nearly 500 aged 15.
The figures were described as “disturbing”, with charities warning the children faced protracted trauma after the treacherous journey.
The route is believed to be becoming increasingly dangerous, with smugglers packing higher numbers of migrants into flimsy and unseaworthy boats which can capsize or collapse in on themselves.
At least three people died attempting to reach the UK in small boats on Sunday, in the latest fatal incident in the Channel.
The deaths, which occurred in French waters, are the first in the Channel since October and bring the number of people who have died attempting the crossing this year to at least 53.
According to the UN, 2024 was the deadliest year yet in the Channel. Crossings have continued over the Christmas period, with Government figures showing at least 1,163 people arrived in the UK via small boat in the last week.
Home Office figures reveal there have been 35,000 small boat arrivals in 2024 in total, compared with 29,000 last year and 45,000 the year before.
In total, 2,595 children made the journey unaccompanied from January to the end of November. Nearly half were 16-year-olds.
It is not clear whether these children were separated from their families on the route or had set off alone, or how many have relatives in the UK they are hoping to be reunited with.
All except 30 were at least temporarily taken into the care of Kent County Council.
Of these, 2,163 were transferred to the care of another local authority via the National Transfer Scheme, which distributes asylum seeking children across the country to share the costs across different councils.
More Sudanese children crossed the Channel than any other nationality.
Sudan has been embroiled in a devastating civil war since April 2023, which has killed between 20,000 and 150,000 people. It triggered the world’s biggest displacement crisis in which 11 million people have been forced to flee their homes.
Sudanese people are now one of the biggest nationality groups waiting in the camps of Calais, with women and children among those living in makeshift shelters in the woodland.
During a visit to the camps earlier this year, one Sudanese teenager told The i Paper that some had been living there for four months. Aid workers said many had developed trench foot through sleeping in their shoes during the cold and wet winter.
Ninety-nine per cent of Sudanese asylum seekers are granted protection in the UK after the Home Office assesses their claim.
Why are people crossing the Channel?
Last year, 99 per cent of people who arrived on small boats made a claim for asylum, meaning they requested refuge in the UK on the grounds of persecution or threat in their own country.
To claim asylum in the UK, a person must be physically in the UK. There is no visa to travel to the UK to make an asylum claim.
According to Oxford’s Migration Observatory, this means that people who do not have another form of visa – or are from the 67 countries which need visas to get to the UK – do not have a legal route to seek asylum in the UK.
Those who do not have access to a passport, either because they never had one or because it was lost or abandoned during the rush to flee their home, also cannot travel to the UK safely to seek asylum, the Observatory said.
The UK does have some routes for other kinds of refugee resettlement in the UK. Most are nationality specific – for Afghans, Ukrainians and Hong Kongers – while some are run by the UN, but people cannot apply for these.
Labour has said it wants to stop the “dangerous” small boat crossings and is focusing on tackling the people smuggling gangs who facilitate them.
It has pledged a further £58m in funding to the National Crime Agency to crack down on smuggling networks and ramped up the voluntary and enforced returns of those without a legal right to remain in the UK.
This year, it launched a new Border Security Command to bolster efforts to investigate, arrest, and prosecute people smugglers.
Children from Afghanistan made up the second largest nationality group crossing the Channel.
The number of Afghans arriving in the UK soared after the Taliban seized power in the country in August 2021, and Afghans were the top nationality arriving by small boat in 2023.
Until this year, almost all Afghans who claimed asylum in the UK were granted refuge, but this has now dropped slightly to 88 per cent.
Iranian children were the third largest nationality group, followed by Syrians and Eritreans.
Dr Wanda Wyporska, chief executive at Safe Passage International, said it was “disturbing” that children under 10, were making the “dangerous and terrifying journeys alone” and warned that they were more at risk of modern slavery.
“We know that the smugglers exploit people instead of payment for these crossings, and these children are particularly vulnerable to that given their age and lack of financial resources.”
Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, who has worked with many children who have crossed the Channel alone, said they had experienced “unimaginable trauma”.
“I’ve sat with young people after they’ve arrived and even by looking at them you can tell how disorientating and traumatic that experience has been.
“Some of the children have been separated from their families on their journey but can’t get a visa for a safe way to come here.”
He added: “We could address this if we allowed children who have to make these difficult and dangerous journeys alone to be united with their family members with a visa. We need to be looking at family reunion rules; something like the Dubs amendment [which allowed a number of unaccompanied child refugees to reunite with family members in the UK each year under a pre-Brexit arrangement] is one of the options.
“Smashing gangs is one part of the equation but the other part is ensuring legal routes so that people, particularly children alone, can come to the UK without putting their lives at risk.”
The i Paper understands the Government is not planning to create a new relocation scheme from Europe for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children at this time.
Home Office sources said unaccompanied children seeking asylum had placed significant pressure on local authorities.
There were 7,380 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children representing around 9 per cent of all looked after children in England alone, according to Home Office statistics in the year ending 31 March 2024.
There are also concerns within the Home Office about creating a “pull factor”, where people are incentivised to make dangerous journeys to the EU in the hope of being transferred to the UK.
Minister for Border Security and Asylum Angela Eagle said: “We all want to end dangerous small boat crossings, which threaten lives and undermine our border security.
“The people-smuggling gangs do not care if the people they exploit, including children, live or die. We will stop at nothing to dismantle their business models and bring them to justice.
“We already offer a number of safe and legal routes for the most vulnerable people and our priority is to make sure these are being used appropriately.”
