CALAIS AND DUNKIRK — Unaccompanied minors were detained 284 times in 2025 at UK-run short-term holding facilities in France, according to newly released data. Over the past four years—2022 through 2025—approximately 900 cases of lone children held at these sites near Calais and Dunkirk have been recorded.

The facilities—located at Coquelles freight, Coquelles tourist, Calais tourist, and Dunkirk—are designed for detaining individuals for no more than 24 hours. In 2025, they held a total of 7,454 adults and children, down from 9,736 in 2024 and up from 8,302 in 2023. The number of unaccompanied minors detained rose from 87 in 2023 to 253 in 2022, then 258 in 2024, before reaching 284 in 2025.

Inspectors described conditions at the UK-run sites as “poor” and raised serious safeguarding concerns. They reported that authorities failed to locate safeguarding referrals for two vulnerable children who were later re-trafficked. Among recent cases, a 14-year-old girl was found zipped inside a holdall in a car and subsequently detained at one of the facilities. A 16-year-old boy with a documented history of trafficking and abuse was also held at a UK-run site. Both were handed over to French border police after detention.

About a month after her detention, the 14-year-old girl was smuggled into the UK and held in a warehouse with five other women before escaping. The 16-year-old boy was later found in the UK. Charlie Taylor, chief inspector of prisons, said: “It was particularly worrying that Border Force could not locate safeguarding referrals of vulnerable detainees, including two children who were subsequently re-trafficked.”

Kama Petruczenko, senior policy analyst at the Refugee Council, said: “These facilities are UK-run and form part of the UK’s border operations so we should be worried that so many children continue to be detained. Refugee children are children first and foremost. They should not be held in unsuitable detention settings or exposed to processes that risk their welfare. The government needs to explain how so many unaccompanied children came to be detained in these facilities and act to fulfil its duty to protect them.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Where we identify serious safeguarding concerns, such as where we believe a child is crossing the border into the UK with an adult that poses a threat, we will bring that child into our care. This is only done sparingly and for the shortest time possible to protect the child in question. Our ability to remove children from adults that pose a threat at the border is critical to tackling abuse and people trafficking.” Official UK immigration statistics do not include data on individuals detained by the UK in France.