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Number of lone minors seeking UK asylum on the increase

Refugees seeking to cross into the UK are seen in this AFP photo in Calais, northern France, on August 13, 2015.

British media reports say the number of unaccompanied children applying for asylum in the UK is soaring.

2,168 immigrants under 18 applied for asylum in the UK between January and June this year, which shows a sharp rise of 46 percent from the previous year when there were 1,488, according to the British daily, the Express.

The soaring number of kids and teens getting into the UK has come under mounted scrutiny this month over the refugee crisis in Europe, which is driving Britain's ties with the European Union to a breaking point.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that Kent County Council was left with a £5.5 million funding gap after being flooded with young refugees from France.

The council, along with police, was forced to demand urgent support to help them deal with hundreds of unaccompanied young refugees slipping through the net from Calais in northern France to southern UK.

Now John Rees with the Stop the War Coalition says the UK has a responsibility to respond to refugees’ plight as the Western foreign policy has in a way led to such a crisis.

The latest figures, published by the UK Home Office, showed that 518 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in the UK in the last quarter, 472 of which were boys.

The statistics also revealed how a large number of EU citizens arriving in Britain has pushed migration to an all-time high

They showed the difference between the number of people entering the country and the number leaving it was an estimated 330,000 in the year to March.


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