Alan Travis – Home Office rules out ‘unethical’ dental checks for Calais refugees

The Home Office has ruled out dental x-ray checks to verify the age of Calais refugees arriving in Britain, criticising them as “inaccurate, inappropriate and unethical”. The official rejection of the demand from Conservative backbenchers was welcomed by the British Dental Association, which had earlier condemned the proposal as inappropriate and inaccurate. “We do not use dental x-rays to confirm …

Amelia Gentleman – ‘He was very scared’: the death of a teenage stowaway

The death of Raheemullah Oryakhel, a 14-year-boy from Afghanistan, was marked last month with just a couple of paragraphs in the French press, under the headline “One migrant dead on the port ring road”. There was nothing much to excite further interest; the boy was the 12th refugee to die inCalais this year. The news item added that Raheemullah’s body …