Warm welcome for Calais migrants as UK age row rages

As a bitter row swirled in Britain over the age of child migrants arriving from Calais, a coach pulled up in London Friday with the latest arrivals from Calais, met by an enthusiastic crowd of supporters.

"Calais kids are welcome here," chanted the dozens of activists, holding balloons and waving banners as the unaccompanied minors arrived at the main national registration centre in Croydon in southeast London.

Bekele Woyecha, of the charity Citizens UK, said he had stood every day since Monday outside the tower block in Croydon, where dozens of migrants have been bussed in this week, "to show that we are with them".

"You cannot expect children to be in that place," he said of the Calais "Jungle" camp, which will be cleared by French authorities on Monday.

"They need protection and safety," Woyecha said.

France Terre d'Asile, the charity that deals with the minors, told AFP that 20 of them left the "Jungle" to be reunited with relatives living in Britain on Friday -- the highest number to leave this week.

As the new arrivals disembarked, and were ushered into the building, they were blocked from sight by scaffolding and tarpaulin erected by authorities to keep them out of view of press and public.

A dispute has raged for days over their ages as some images have given rise to claims that adults may be posing as minors to gain entry.

One MP, David Davies, has called for testing teeth to determine age to outrage from the medical community.

Football star Gary Lineker's support for the refugees has proved divisive, sparking a confrontation with The Sun tabloid which has even called for him to step down as the BBC's Match of the Day presenter.

Another lawmaker, Philip Davies, told fellow lawmakers in a parliamentary debate on the issue on Friday that people only have to look at photographs of "so-called child refugees" arriving in Britain "to see that many of them are not children".

Immigration minister Robert Goodwill ruled out dental checks and insisted the government does carry out age assessments and had rejected 10 percent of applications from Calais because of that.

- 'Vulnerable and scared' -

Tim Clapton, a Church of England priest involved in welcoming the migrants, dismissed the age claims as "ridiculous".

He said he met with new arrivals from Afghanistan, Eritrea and South Sudan on Tuesday and played cards with them while they waited to be registered.

"I can assure everybody they were children," he said.

"They were vulnerable, scared and waiting to know what was going to happen to them.

"We want to show solidarity with the young people, to say they are welcome in this country, they have got a home here, they are going to be safe here."

Croydon resident Violet Simpson also said she was satisfied that the migrants she had seen were children.

"They need our love and support," said the retired mother-of-seven, who "felt like a fish out of water" when she arrived in Britain from Jamaica, aged 14.

"I cried my eyes out. I know what these children are feeling," she added.

But one onlooker was less impressed with the enthusiastic welcome.

Maher Kadl Abdula said he came to Britain from the Iraqi city of Mosul 12 years ago and was still waiting for his asylum request to be processed.

"Why don't they fix the people who have been waiting here for five, 10, 15 years, before letting in these people from Calais?" he said.