Nearly one in three migrant children tracked by a refugee charity are missing since the “Jungle” camp in the northern French town of Calais was dismantled in October, the organisation says.

Refugee Youth Service said it could not locate a third of the 179 child migrants it had been tracking since authorities bulldozed the Jungle, home to up to 10,000 people fleeing war or poverty in the Middle East and Africa.

Women and children protesting their case to the UK government at the notorious Jungle camp in Calais. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty

The fate of children staying in the squalid camp where migrants converged in the hope of making it across to Britain, has been a political problem for the British government.

Religious leaders, refugee rights campaign groups and opposition parties have accused Britain of dragging its heels in helping to deal with unaccompanied children.

Refugee Youth Service, which has worked in the Calais camp since November last year, said a lack of information and widespread misunderstanding about what will happen to them had led to many children disappearing.

“When they disappear we are extremely concerned that they will be preyed upon by traffickers and are unlikely to seek state support due to their treatment to date,” said the charity’s co-founder Ben Teuten said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the French authorities began moving about 1500 unaccompanied child migrants from the Jungle to reception camps across the country.

A child at a camp for refugees in Grande–Synthe this week, where some of the Calais children have ended up. Photo: Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty

Migrant children have two legal routes into Britain. One is under European Union rules that allow for children to be reunited with relatives already in the UK.

The other is under the so-called Dubs amendment to the Immigration Act which allows the most at-risk child refugees in Italy, Greece and France to be taken to the UK for sanctuary.

– Zoe Tabary