Open letter to David Cameron: Protect the children of Calais

Dozens of small children are about to be left out in the cold. French authorities are bulldozing half of the refugee camp in Calais. They’re destroying the makeshift church and the makeshift children’s centre.

There are a few hundred children in the camp, and they’re in limbo. Lots of the kids have family in the UK, but it’s taking too long to reunite them with their families. David Cameron could step in to make sure these children are protected – but unless he feels the pressure, he won’t. They’ll be left alone in the sprawling, freezing camp.

Benedict Cumberbatch, Jude Law and Sandi Toksvig have started an open letter to the Prime Minister asking him to step in and help. They’re well known names. But there’s not many of them. The letter has about 140 names so far – but imagine if it got thousands more overnight. It would cause a media splash, and put David Cameron under the spotlight.

Please can you add your name to the open letter calling on Cameron to protect the refugee children facing bulldozers in Calais?

As the bulldozers move in, children living in the Calais refugee camp will be left to fend for themselves – children like Tom*. Tom lost all his family, his Mum, his Dad, in the conflict in Syria. He’s trying to be reunited with his only remaining brother – but he’s trapped in Calais.

It’s freezing cold in the camp right now. And as the bulldozers roll in, children stuck a few miles from our shores are in need of help. The open letter to David Cameron calls for three things:

1. To speed up reuniting children stuck in Calais and Dunkirk with their families in the UK
2. Make sure that kids who don’t have family in the UK are looked after properly by the French authorities and given somewhere to live in France.
3. To stop the bulldozers until all children are either given a safe place to live in France or reunited with their family in the UK.

38 Degrees members are working tirelessly from Penzance to Perth to make sure our communities are ready to welcome these families fleeing war. We’ve pushed dozens of councils to promise to resettle hundreds of people.

And together we launched the National Refugees Welcome board to make sure that as soon as refugees arrive here, they’ve got somewhere to stay and the essentials are ready for them. Let’s be there again for the children trapped just a few miles from their families in the UK. Please add your name to the open letter?