The Secretary General’s Special Representative on migration and refugees, Ambassador Tomáš Boček, conducted a fact-finding mission to northern France on 12-13 September 2016. He visited the camps in Calais and Grande-Synthe and the Command and Control Centre in Calais. He had meetings with the representatives of central government, the local authorities, the police, the UNHCR and national and international NGOs. The visit was followed up with trips to Paris and London on 21-23 September during which the Special Representative discussed his preliminary conclusions with government officials, other competent authorities and IGO and NGO representatives. Mr Boček will publish his report on his northern France mission shortly.
In October the Special Representative will undertake a fact-finding mission to Sicily, Como and Rome to assess the situation of migrants and refugees in Italy.
The Secretary General has also tasked the Special Representative with the preparation of an organisation-wide action plan on the protection of migrant and refugee children as a matter of priority. This should focus on the main challenges facing this particularly vulnerable group namely: detention, access to education, effective guardianship and age-assessment procedures and family reunification. Work on the plan is currently underway.
Finally, on 19 September, Mr Boček attended the UN General Assembly High-Level Summit for Refugees and Migrants in New York; he participated in the round-table on “International action and cooperation on refugees and migration and issues related to displacement: the way ahead” and, the day before, in the high-level event on migrant and refugee children co-organised by UNICEF, the Estonian Mission to the UN and the Council of Europe. On the sidelines of the summit, he had a series of bilateral meetings with international partners.