More than 10,000 unaccompanied refugee and migrant children have
disappeared in Europe, the EU police agency Europol said on Sunday,
fearing many have been whisked into s*x trafficking rings or the slave
trade. Europol’s press office confirmed to Al Jazeera the
figures published in British newspaper The Observer. The number relates
to the last 18-24 months. The agency’s chief of staff Brian Donald said
the vulnerable children had disappeared from the system after
registering with state authorities following their arrival in Europe.
Donald said there was evidence of a “criminal infrastructure”
established since mid-2014 to exploit the refugee flow. The Observer
reported that Europol found evidence of links between smuggling rings
bringing people into the EU and human trafficking gangs exploiting...
migrants for s*x and slavery. “There are prisons in Germany and Hungary
where the vast majority of people arrested and placed there are in
relation to criminal activity surrounding the migrant crisis,” Donald
said. Over one million migrants and refugees, many fleeing the Syria
conflict, crossed into Europe last year. “Whether they are registered or
not, we’re talking about 270,000 children,” Donald told the paper.
“It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus
children,” Donald told The Observer, adding that 5,000 had disappeared
in Italy alone. “Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some
might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where
they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with.”
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