Recruitment firms offer helping hand to Sangatte migrants arriving in Britain

Recruitment firms have already offered to find jobs with catering and hotel companies for migrants who began arriving in Britain yesterday from the closed Sangatte refugee camp in France.

The first 40 Iraqi Kurds allowed into Britain to work under a deal agreed this week by the British and French governments arrived in London by coach yesterday.

They will be offered accommodation, full board and a £10 weekly living allowance for up to three months, while they are found jobs.

The Home Office said yesterday that there were "already offers from recruitment companies" and added that the migrants were expected to fill job shortages in the hotel, catering and food processing industries.

Britain has agreed to take some 980 Iraqi Kurds and 200 Afghans who had arrived at the Sangatte camp in recent months, hoping to cross the Channel to Britain and claim asylum.

The Afghans are being admitted under a family unification programme because they have relatives in Britain but the Kurds are being treated as economic migrants.

The Home Office declined to specify where the first 40 would be housed, for fear that they might be targeted by extremists.

A spokesman said: "We are not saying where for security reasons. This is a sensitive issue. We need to handle it sensitively."

The Iraqis will be settled in London and Sheffield and will be allowed to work for up to four years before their cases are reviewed.

Yesterday at Sangatte, which will be emptied by 30 December, there was a visible excitement among residents preparing to come to Britain.

Aram, 26, an Iraqi Kurd, said he expected to travel to England today and be reunited with his mother and sister.

He said yesterday: "Saddam Hussein killed my two brothers in 1991 so my father said to go. I went by car to Turkey and came here two months ago. I shall go to England tomorrow. I'm very happy."

Ibtekar Ahmad, 25, said he left Afghanistan because of a "medical problem" and wants to see his brother in London.

"I have given my interview. When my number comes, I will go on a bus. My family is in England. When I go to England I will work and, if I can, continue my education," he said

He added that he had high hopes that one day he will be able to invite to England his wife and small child that he was forced to leave behind.

The Iraqis have all been "security cleared" by the French and British intelligence services because of fears that Saddam Hussein might try to send spies into the UK.