French action urged over Calais asylum-seeker children

England's children's commissioner has asked the French government to help children who are alone in Calais's refugee camp to reach relatives in Britain.

Anne Longfield has written to French authorities to ask them to speed up the asylum claims of 150 children who may be eligible to travel to Britain, BBC reported on Saturday.

"We're talking about cardboard shacks - it rains, they fall down. They're by themselves, it's extraordinarily dangerous, they're at risk of health [problems], trafficking, any manner of danger there," she wrote.

"They're not being protected while they're there [and] some of those children are actually eligible to join their close family here."

She also claimed the French are not properly protecting lone children at the camp, saying 129 have gone missing.

The children, some as young as 10, have fled fighting in Syria and elsewhere.

Charity workers are said to have identified the children who are potentially eligible to move to the UK because they have parents or siblings there.

Longfield's call follows a visit to the camp to meet children living there alone while waiting for their cases to be reviewed.