A cheerful three-year-old in yellow wellington boots splashed through puddles outside one of Europe’s largest informal migrant camps this week, unaware of the perilous journey reportedly being planned for him. The dark-eyed toddler was among children preparing to cross the Channel by boat from the sprawling camp on the outskirts of Dunkirk, France, in the hope of reaching Britain.
Dozens of children, including a baby, have either already made the journey or are expected to attempt it this weekend as calmer conditions improve the prospects for small-boat crossings in the Channel.
Figures released to the Daily Mail by Kent County Council show that thousands of children have crossed the 21-mile stretch since January. At least 2,182 travelled without an accompanying adult—an average of more than 200 each month.
A small number were reportedly concealed in lorries travelling on ferries, but most made the dangerous trip aboard boats operated by people smugglers.
The rising number of unaccompanied arrivals is also placing significant pressure on public finances. The latest Home Office figures estimate that housing and supporting an unaccompanied migrant child costs the taxpayer £143 a night—roughly £52,000 a year.
If the toddler in the yellow wellies reaches Britain, supporting him until he turns 18 could cost more than £780,000, based on those annual figures.
At Dover on Thursday morning, children who had arrived from France overnight were photographed coming ashore. A baby in white socks was carried into the port by a Border Force officer, kicking its feet as it was taken to safety. No parent was visible nearby.
After eight years of reporting on people-smuggling operations involving Channel crossings, I have never witnessed children appearing in such numbers among those being placed in the hands of traffickers.
A migrant carries a baby aboard a small boat on a beach in Eccault, France, in August this year. Since January, thousands of children have crossed the 21-mile Channel route, including at least 2,182 who travelled without an adult—more than 200 each month.
Migrant arrivals at Dover, including a child, on October 29, 2026. Unaccompanied children arriving by boat are taken to the Kent Intake Unit, located on a hill above the port, where social workers provide care.
The scenes are particularly troubling because the Dunkirk camp is a harsh and unsuitable environment for children.
Hundreds of blue bell tents supplied by charities are scattered across the site, where residents burn fires to keep warm amid dirty and overcrowded conditions.
Orange lifejackets hang from the surrounding trees. Some have been purchased from nearby sports shops, while others are sold at makeshift stalls in the camp, allowing migrants to remain ready to leave for the beaches at short notice.
Although some families were present, including mothers carrying babies or pushing them in prams, many of the boys and girls seen at the camp did not appear to be accompanied by their parents.
Children played among the dirt, chasing footballs and wandering around the site with little apparent supervision.
As we passed, a group of girls who appeared to be around eight or nine years old held out their hands asking for sweets. People arriving at the camp come from Africa, the Middle East and other European countries, including Germany and Sweden, which have begun deporting illegal migrants.
Many make their way to northern France after being drawn by the prospect of crossing the Channel with the help of people smugglers.
The toddler in the yellow boots was first seen at about 11am on Wednesday outside the sprawling Dunkirk camp.
About an hour later, in a remarkable sequence of events, around 400 migrants left the camp in three separate groups, apparently heading towards the coast.
A group of migrants, including children, heads towards a beach in northern France. Under human rights law, a child who reaches Britain alone is entitled to state care until the age of 18.
Groups of migrants sit at Gravelines train station in northern France. Daily Mail journalist Sue Reid witnesses thousands of youngsters waiting in France to set out on the traffickers’ boats, either alone or with their families, in a new migrant crisis for ever-welcoming Britain
We followed the one that included the boy. They took the yellow public bus from near the Dunkirk camp, known as ‘Loon Plage’, which took them to the village of Gravelines a few miles away.
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From there the migrants walked to the nearby railway station, the weary child by this time being carried on a man’s shoulders.
At Gravelines station, the three groups we had seen leaving the camp separately came together on the platform as they waited for the train to Calais.
There were so many migrants by now that they were forced to sit, lie or stand three deep on the platform. Some who could not fit on, spilled out onto the shale at each end. Somehow they all managed to board the train to Calais and, once there, changed platforms to head on towards Boulogne and its long coastline of flat beaches.
We know this because we tracked the child in the yellow wellies throughout the day, following him and his migrant group by car and on foot.
As we did so, we were spotted by members of the gang, who immediately covered their faces with masks, hoods or scarves in a bid to hide their identities from the Mail’s photographer. One bearded gangster gave us the finger in the street, while another shook his fist as we passed by in our car.
It was a reminder, if any were needed, that the gangs running the migrant boats across the Channel are both ruthless and secretive. They organise their multimillion pound criminal operation with the efficiency of an army on manoeuvres, but have not a care for human life.
And it is clear that they are now targeting a new kind of customer: children and babies. The Daily Mail can reveal today that the boat gangs were this week bringing children to the UK for a going rate of £1,500 a head, with the price increasing daily as demand grows for places on their boats.
As three weeks of rough weather halted crossings earlier this month, there is a backlog of 4,000 migrants waiting to leave the Dunkirk camp, which is now the second biggest illegal settlement in the EU after one in Puglia, Italy.
Everyone living there is planning to slip across the Channel for new lives in Britain. ‘Demand is so high it is impossible to negotiate the traffickers’ price down, even for children or babies,’ a 24-year-old Afghan in the camp told me.
‘They are hard men, I think there could even be 5,000 people here in Dunkirk all wanting to go to the UK.’
Human rights law dictates that a child reaching Britain alone should be given state care until they are 18. They automatically receive further financial help, such as housing and a living allowance, for another seven years. They cannot be deported until they are 25.
Is it any wonder that some migrant families waiting in France are prepared to put their child or children on a boat and let them set off alone in the hope they will get a foothold in the UK?
Earlier this month, a migrant baby was photographed on a boat leaving France with a suspected trafficker who held her in one arm while simultaneously using his other hand to hold the outboard engine of the vessel as he guided it towards England.
One legal battle highlighted by the Daily Mail last year involved two boys of six and nine who came in on a boat alone from France to Dover.
The children had allegedly been separated from their parents after a chaotic launch resulted in their mother and father being left behind in France.
The boys were put into foster care in Kent while the parents, with the help of refugee charities, demanded to join their children in England.
Later, the case went to the Court of Appeal, where the Home Office successfully argued that if they were reunited in the UK, rather than France, it would set a dangerous precedent of lone children being put on boats as ‘anchors’ by parents hoping to follow them.
After many months of legal wrangling the two boys were returned to their parents in Calais.
Unaccompanied child arrivals by boat in Dover are taken to what is called the Kent Intake Unit on a hill by the port, where they are cared for by social workers.
Within two days, the children are put in the care of foster parents up and down the country, who will look after them until adulthood at a huge cost to the taxpayer.
No one is blaming the children for this state of affairs, of course. They are entirely innocent.
But, as I witnessed this week, there are now thousands of youngsters waiting in France to set out on the traffickers’ boats, either alone or with their families, in a new migrant crisis for ever-welcoming Britain.