A NETWORK of detention camps is to be established in eastern Europe to intercept tens of thousands of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants before they reach countries such as Britain.

The camps, funded by Brussels, will be set up in countries beyond the new eastern frontier of the European Union which will be established when new members join on May 1.

About 20,000 migrants who pass through Ukraine alone — half the total — are estimated to head for Britain each year.

The new network of centres, reminiscent of the Sangatte camp, run by the International Red Cross near Calais but now closed, is intended to catch migrants on routes westward from China, Afghanistan and the Indian sub-continent. It is feared that the admission of the new countries could mean the EU’s external borders will be less well policed than now.

The new camps will remain under the control of their host countries in eastern Europe. The UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, said the planned camps did not represent a revival of proposals by David Blunkett, the home secretary, to deal with British asylum claims in “offshore” camps outside the EU’s borders.

The first two centres, housing about 1,600 illegal migrants at a time, are to be set up in Ukraine, which is on a key transit route from Asia to Britain. The country is also building three asylum centres for a total of 400 people.

Two other countries on the eastern border of the new EU are also pushing forward plans for new centres to cope with migrants and asylum seekers. An asylum centre is planned for Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, and a detention camp for illegal immigrants is proposed for Belarus.

Jeffrey Labovitz, head of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Ukraine, said about 40,000 people annually made it into the EU from Ukraine, although little more than 10% of that number were currently detained. There were 4,280 detainees in the first nine months of 2003. Estimates from border guards collated by the IOM suggest between a third and half of the total — up to 20,000 a year — are bound for Britain.

At present, migrants caught trying to cross illegally from Ukraine into Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are housed at border posts in squalid conditions. The concrete buildings are unheated and officials have only 20p a day to feed each detainee.

After six months they are released and little is done to prevent them from making fresh attempts to cross into the EU. For those wishing to make a new life in western Europe there is no incentive to claim asylum in Ukraine.

Under the new system, backed by Brussels, the detention centres will have more humane facilities. This has brought fears that the camps might suffer the “Sangatte problem” in which the French camp became a magnet for illegal immigrants looking for a staging post on their journey west.

The Ukrainian embassy in London confirmed that the preferred locations were on the sites of former barracks at Chernigov, north of Kiev, and Lutsk, on the Polish border. An embassy spokesman said: “We hope this will reduce the number of migrants heading for the EU.” There are also plans to repatriate illegal immigrants who have travelled from the Ukraine to Britain and the rest of the EU.

Brussels is believed to be prepared to pay the cost of airlifting illegal immigrants, who passed into the EU via the Ukraine, back to their country of origin.

However, informed sources indicate that the EU would have no choice but to turn a blind eye to Ukrainian and other eastern Europeans living illegally within the boundaries of the EU.

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