Over 10000 migrant children missing: Europol

More than 10 000 unaccompanied migrant children have disappeared in Europe on 18-24 last month, said on Sunday the police coordination agency Europol, fearing that many of them are exploited, including sexually, by organized crime. “We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with”, he said, according to RT.

Donald warned that a sophisticated pan-European “criminal infrastructure” was now targeting refugees.

The revelation that so many youngsters are unaccounted for is the latest worrying development in the migrant crisis and underscores the risks faced by people fleeing conflict, poverty and persecution in the Middle East, Africa and Asia even once they have reached the apparent safety of Europe. If a country is going to accept a young, unaccompanied minor into its country, it needs to make sure that they don’t end up on the streets begging, involved in a gang, or being sold into sexual slavery.

Europol analysts studying law enforcement details from across the 28-nation European Union are concerned that they are beginning to see cross-pollination between people-smugglers and criminals who traffick and exploit humans.

Officials has reported almost 10,000 child refugee disappearances in Europe.

In Italy alone, Donald said some 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children had disappeared after arrival.

Laura Pappa, president of the Greek charity Meta-Action, a group accompanying children who travel without relatives, said they “face a destiny that is worse than that of the rest of migrants waiting to be relocated”.

“Whether they are registered or not, we’re talking about 270,000 children”, Donald told the paper. “Not all of those are unaccompanied, but we also have evidence that a large proportion might be”.

Europe’s refugee crisis continues unabated.

The Europol boss admitted that there was evidence the children were being targeted by human traffickers and sex trade gangs.

And anti-fascist and far-right protesters clashed in a southern German town where unknown assailants threw a hand grenade into a refugee shelter on Friday, as the country scrambles to integrate the over one million asylum seekers it welcomed a year ago.

Immigration minister James Brokenshire said the “vast majority” of refugees were “better served staying in the region so they can be reunited with surviving family members”. “These kids are in the community, if they are being abused it’s in the community. As a population we need to be alert to this”, Mr Donald said.