Children trapped in war zones because of UK refusal to ease refugee visa rules

London: Children are being trapped in war zones as a result of “impossible” bureaucratic requirements imposed on one of the few legal routes for asylum seekers, a charity has found.

The government has championed family reunion processes as a means for refugees to safely reunite with loved ones in Britain, but according to a new report by Ramfel, a charity that supports vulnerable migrants, the scheme is “not fit for purpose” and applicants have been abandoned, leaving them at risk of trafficking or even death.

Ramfel said that when conflict broke out in Sudan in April 2023, it was supporting 14 people, all of whom could qualify to come to the UK under the scheme. But over a year later, eight remain trapped there and “facing extreme risks”. Several are children who previously fled Eritrea, a repressive dictatorship that conducts forcible mass conscription of men, women and children. Two other boys saw a loved one killed when their home was raided and looted in Sudan.

Some of the teenagers have now fled Sudan on irregular routes, with one boy detained in Libya and another unaccompanied child being trafficked to South Sudan and raped.

Just two of the children who were in Sudan when conflict erupted have arrived in the UK, and despite closing its visa application centre in Khartoum, the government has not agreed to waive requirements for applicants to register their fingerprints and biometric information in person.

“Visa Application Centres are open and operating in neighbouring countries,” reads a Home Office letter. “However, travel across Sudan is conducted at your own risk, and under your own discretion, considering whether it is safe to do so.”

An Eritrean refugee living in the UK told of his desperate efforts to have his two young brothers, now aged 17 and 14, join him. They fled to Sudan alone after their mother died and their father was seized by Eritrean authorities, and were living in a refugee camp when fighting started.

A Sudanese girl who fled the war in Sudan with her family carries her belongings after arriving at a transit centre for refugees in Renk, South Sudan.

“I made the [family reunion] application but the Home Office was saying that there was not a place to test them for tuberculosis or a visa centre in Sudan,” said Yusef*. “They said they couldn’t take them.”

As the conflict spread, his brothers fled north from Khartoum and into Egypt, where they are living irregularly and face arrest and detention from authorities.

“They don’t have anyone, how will they survive?” Yusef asked. “If the police find them asleep, they will take them back to Eritrea and they will be put in prison. They are still in this situation and they’re very scared.”

Yusef, who travelled to the UK himself as a teenager in 2018 and has since been granted refugee status, said he did not understand why his young brothers could not have been allowed on a plane to Britain from Sudan.

The Home Office did not consider a request to bypass biometric enrolment for the children in October last year, and Ramfel is now attempting to have them registered in Cairo.

Yusef said he would not stop his efforts to bring them to safety in the UK, adding: “I’m the only person they have, I am the only one that can help them.”

Ramfel cited the Sudan war as an example of the “abject failure” of the family reunion process, which is primarily for children and spouses of UK residents and can only be expanded to siblings and other close relatives under a separate, more restricted, scheme.

The charity argues that the situation is driving greater numbers of refugees on to irregular routes that ultimately result in small boat crossings over the English Channel, which are running at a record high.

Nick Beales, head of campaigning at the charity, said: “The UK’s family reunion system is not fit for purpose and this report shows that it does not act as an effective safe route for refugees seeking to come to the UK.

“For people in places such as Sudan and Gaza, they are prevented from even applying for family reunion due to the government’s inflexible and unreasonable insistence on them attending non-existing visa application centres.

“This leaves those in conflict zones, including unaccompanied children, with no choice but to take dangerous journeys in search of family reunification.”

Ramfel called for the next government to create a process that allows those with loved ones in the UK to swiftly and safely secure visas for legal travel to Britain.

Home Office figures show that 9,764 refugees were granted family reunion visas in 2023, of whom half were children. The department said fingerprints and facial images were necessary for identity and suitability checks on foreign nationals who are subject to immigration control, and that people who could not travel to visa application centres “can contact us to explain their circumstances”.