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'The youngest refugee was two years old'

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RefugeeImage source, Getty Images

Until now the government has only accepted refugees from official camps in and around Syria.

Now that's changed, according to David Cameron.

For months there have been calls from campaigners, and even from within his own party, to accept child refugees who are already in Europe.

Unaccompanied Syrian children registered in Greece, Italy, or France will be eligible to come and settle in the UK.

"You know these are children just like you and I were children," says singer-songwriter Jess Mills, who's chatted to Newsbeat.

"They have the same needs, the same fears, the have the same need for protection, the same need for safety."

Jess volunteers with a charity called Help Refugees. She's also visited the camp in Calais where hundreds of Syrian children try to enter the UK illegally every day.

Image source, Getty Images
Image caption,

Jess Mills has vistited the migrant camp in Calais

"At one point the youngest child in Calais was a two-year-old little boy. The majority of the children there who were unaccompanied were between 10 and 13 years old.

"Lots of them have nobody left in the world. They've lost their families, they've lost their loved ones in horrors that are incomprehensible to us."

It's not yet known how many child refugees will come over, or where they will go as the government hasn't spoken to local councils yet.

Also with local elections in the UK coming up, as well as an EU referendum, David Cameron is keen to avoid a party rebellion.

Jess remembers the story of a Syrian boy which stood out.

"A bomb hit his house and inside were his mum and his dad, his two brothers and his three sisters, and his whole family were killed.

"At the time he was eleven, that was this time last year. He then had three months [of being] smuggled across Europe.

"Children experience the most appalling things at the hands of smugglers, and he arrived in France and no one was there to protect him."

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