Iraq boy found walking on UK motorway

An Iraqi boy thought to be around 15 years old has been found on the M6 after entering the UK on Wednesday night.

The child was found wandering down the central reservation near junction 7 before being picked up and taken into emergency care.

In a tweet, the Central Motorway Police Group said he had been split up from his family several days ago, didn’t know which country he was in and did not speak English.

He also does not know which country his parents are in.

In October police rescued two children aged three and four, also from Iraq, as they wandered along the M62 in northern England.

When police arrived they found their parents in a motorway car park.

Last year the police reported that the number of refugees, particularly from Iran and Iraq, being left at the side of motorways was rising.

READ: New refugee influx heading to Turkey from Syria says Erdogan

Since the 2003 Iraq invasion, co-led by the UK, Iraq has witnessed severe violence and mass displacement yet the UK does not have a sustained resettlement programme for Iraqis.

In 2007, in response to the UK returning people to northern Iraq, Amnesty called on Britain to put a resettlement scheme in place.

The human rights watchdog has said that the UK’s failure to take responsibility for Iraq’s refugee crisis and to take in its fair share of Iraqis, is shameful.

This looks only set to get worse. Yesterday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson did a U-turn on a previous commitment to protect child refugees in Europe seeking to reunite with family in the UK.

The obligation to negotiate an agreement that “an unaccompanied child who has made a claim for international protection in a member state can come to the UK to join a relative” has been scrapped.

The only requirement now is to make a statement to parliament.

Lord Alf Dubs, who led the campaign to protect children after Brexit, told the Independent that hundreds of children with relatives in the UK will be left stranded by themselves in Europe.