“lack of humanity”
Ukrainian refugees in Calais: France raises serious allegations against Great Britain
The UN reports that more than a million people have fled Ukraine
© Adrien Vautier/ / Picture Alliance
Several hundred Ukrainian refugees have wanted to travel to Great Britain via France in the past few days. But the British border guards sent them away. The French interior minister has now sent a letter to his counterpart in the neighboring country.
France has accused Britain of a “lack of humanity” towards war refugees from Ukraine. In a letter to his British colleague Priti Patel, which AFP was able to see on Saturday, France’s Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin complained that the British authorities were “completely inappropriate” in dealing with refugees who had arrived in Calais in northern France in the past few days and from there to relatives in wanted to travel to Great Britain.
In the past few days, 400 Ukrainian refugees have presented themselves at border posts in Calais, Darmanin wrote. 150 of them were asked to go to Paris or Brussels to apply for visas for the United Kingdom at the British consulates there.
France demands unbureaucratic visa processing on site to prevent further “tragedies”.
Britain must offer real consular services in Calais, Darmanin demanded. “It is essential that your consular post can – exceptionally and for the duration of this crisis – issue family reunification visas locally in Calais,” wrote the Home Secretary to his colleague. It is “incomprehensible” that the United Kingdom is able to offer such services on the Polish-Ukrainian border, but not in its direct neighbor France.
“Our shores have been the scene of so much tragedy,” Darmanin wrote, referring to the many refugees who die each year trying dangerously to cross the English Channel from France to Britain. “Let’s not add these Ukrainian families to them.”
Faces of war
20 images
The situation of the refugees in the English Channel is a regular topic of conversation
The refugee problem in the English Channel strains relations between Great Britain and France. Tensions were fueled by a serious boat accident in November that killed 27 refugees. At the time, Paris and London had accused each other of not doing enough against gangs of people smugglers.
According to the UN, more than 1.3 million people have fled the country since Russia’s war of aggression began in Ukraine. So far, 756,000 of them have been accepted by neighboring Poland.