As soon as I walk into the squalid, unofficial migrant camp known as "the Jungle," outside the northern French city of Calais, I meet Amran, a 13-year-old Afghan boy staying here on his own.

In a high-pitched child's voice — it hasn't yet changed — Amran tells me his story. His father is dead and his mother wanted him to leave Afghanistan for his own safety. It took him eight months to reach this port city and the Jungle, which French authorities began dismantling this week.

Amran says his mother told him he has an uncle in the U.K. Somehow, he's hoping to get there.

Felicity Parsisson has been trying to get Amran to attend a makeshift school in the Jungle. She works with the British charity Jungle Books, which set up a library and helps the children here. Parsisson says unaccompanied minors are very vulnerable because the camp is open and anybody can enter and leave as they wish.

"Many of these kids have been here for a long time now, and it's hard," she says. "The longer they're out of the school system, the longer they're here without proper caretaking and responsibility, the harder it's going to be for them in the future."

With the war in Syria now in its fifth year and violence continuing in Iraq and Afghanistan, experts predict there will be a lost generation of displaced children who have spent their formative years out of school and living in the rough.

Minors On Their Own
The number of unaccompanied minors traveling to Europe from the Middle East and Africa is growing. Sweden and Germany — where most unaccompanied minors have headed — registered 95,000 last year alone. The children are living in special facilities, where their privacy is protected. Unlike my chance meeting with Amran in Calais, it's very difficult to talk to one of the asylum seekers there.

According to international law, based on the Geneva Conventions, countries bear a special responsibility to protect minors. But it seems to depend entirely on where they end up. - Read More at the NPR

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