Britain to accept unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from Europe

Unaccompanied children seeking asylum will be resettled in Britain from Greece, Italy and France, Downing Street announced Wednesday.

Unaccompanied children registered in Greece, Italy or France before March 20 will be eligible for resettlement, and the British government will work with local authorities on plans to resettle them, the prime minister's office said in a statement.

It noted the British government had adopted a twin-track approach to dealing with the migrant crisis by "helping the most vulnerable while not encouraging new perilous crossings to Europe."

The resettlement plan will be restricted to children registered before the EU migration agreement with Turkey came into force on March 20.

"The retrospective nature of the scheme will avoid creating a perverse incentive for families to entrust their children to people traffickers," Downing Street explained.

Announcing the plan in Parliament on Wednesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron said, "we must stick to the principle that we shouldn't be encouraging people to make that perilous journey."

"That's been the cornerstone of our policy and that should remain the case," he added.

The British government "is not putting a fixed number" on children to be accepted, but will work with local authorities across the country to decide how many children will be resettled, according to the prime minister's office. Endit