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Children and babies coming to the UK on small boats from northern France have been teargassed and subjected to tactics such as the discharge of rubber bullets and the slashing of dinghies with knives, according to a new report.
The publication on Tuesday of We Want to Be Safe, by the French non-governmental organisation Project Play, came as the latest figures on daily crossings released by the UK government reached an all-time high of 19,982 for the first six months of the year, a 40% increase compared with the same period last year.
This increase has taken place despite repeated pledges by the Labour government to “smash the gangs”.
The Project Play report says that although French authorities, funded by the UK government to the tune of tens of millions of euros, have increased interventions on the beaches of northern France, the policy has simply increased the death toll and the numbers of people subjected to violence, and made crossings more dangerous.
One 13-year-old child who witnessed this violence told the NGO that the French police “bring out the knives and pepper spray, then guns. I’m only a child. Why are you doing this?”
New data in the report shows that 2024 was the worst year on record for child and adult deaths, with at least 15 children dying while trying to cross last year, and at least three of those due to crushing injuries. Their ages ranged from three days to 16 years old. More children died attempting to cross the Channel than in the previous four years combined.
“The UK-France border is becoming an increasingly deadly space for children,” the report states.
Last year the French Red Cross encountered 879 unaccompanied children in northern France. Some, particularly those who have fled Sudan, do not have money to pay smugglers and are more likely to try to clandestinely board lorries, which carries risks of asphyxiation, being hit by traffic, and violence from lorry drivers if they are discovered.
Last year the French NGO Utopia 56 came into contact with 14,538 people involved in 659 failed crossings,of whom 1,131 were children, 268 unaccompanied.
Project Play, which provides play services and other support to children and families around Calais and Dunkirk, directly attributed the rising levels of violence, trauma and deaths of children to UK government policies.
“On 16 October, a three-year-old began lining up toy cars like riot vehicles and yelling ‘police’. He was deeply dysregulated,” said one Project Play staff member.
Katie Hall, the advocacy lead at Project Play, said: “Every day, we see France and the UK not only failing to protect the human rights of children, but pursuing policies which actively threaten and undermine them.”
Many children showed signs of trauma as a result of police intimidation and aggression.
The report calls for an urgent end to the violence that children face on the border, and makes recommendations for policy changes in the UK and France.
These include the publication of transparent data on deaths, an end to violent French police operations in living sites and on beaches, and a halt to the UK funding that enables them.
The report also calls for the creation of safe and accessible routes to asylum in France and the UK.
Project Play dedicated the report to the children who died at the border in 2024: Abadeh, Mohamed, Roula, Sara, Abdelaziz, Mohammed, Ishannullah, Sabila, Meri, Mansur, Maryam, Salah, and the others whose names have been lost.
The UK Home Office and France’s interior ministry have been approached for comment.
