'They are treated with the most appalling hostility': the children seeking safety on Britain's shores

The number of unaccompanied children claiming asylum in the UK has soared, but after risking their lives to get here, many are being put at further risk, writes Martha Gill

- Martha Gill

Taj arrived in Britain in 2018, hiding in the wheel arch of a bus. He was 16 and had travelled alone from his home in Darfur, where he had been tortured. He fled Sudan to Libya, and then through Italy to France. In France, he was homeless and hungry. When he saw a chance to travel to Britain, he seized it.

"I knew the bus had a British number plate. All I had was a bottle of water and one apple - I nearly fell off three times," he says. The journey was terrifying, although the bus kept him warm. "On the third day the bus was still for a long time, and I thought: I can't take this any longer. I need to get off, I'm going to die anyway." He left the wheel arch and found the bus was on a ship crossing the Channel.

When the ship docked in England he was discovered by border police, and questioned about his age. "All I knew how to say was 'yes'" Police said he was 28. He was sent to an adult immigration detention centre. But the next morning, Home Office social workers accepted he was 16 and he was taken to a care home in Bedford.

Taj was one of a growing number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) who end up in the care system - a cohort that now makes up almost one in 10 "looked after" children. In 2014, there were 2,050 UASC in council care; by 2024, the figure was 7,380.

Taj found he did not fully understand the asylum system he was in and neither, it seemed, did many of the people looking after him. It was difficult, he says, to work out the rules. “I wanted to go to school, but they said no, I needed to wait".