UK Migration Minister Robert Jenrick admitted Tuesday that some 200 minors, mostly teenagers from Albania, have gone missing in asylum seeker accommodation.
The head of the portfolio has detailed that thirteen of the minors are under 16 years old, and one of them is a girl, according to the BBC.
Jenrick, who explained to the British parliamentarians that of the 4,600 minor asylum seekers who have arrived in the country since 2021, several hundred of them have disappeared, indicated that it is «extremely worrying», although he specified that he had not seen evidence that the children were being kidnapped.
In this sense, he acknowledged that this situation is «a challenge», while clarifying that the local authorities are mobilized to find the missing and ensure their safety.
The Rishi Sunak government has been criticized in this regard. On the one hand, the spokesperson for the Interior of the Labor Party -in opposition-, Yvette Cooper, has accused the cabinet of «neglect of duty».
Cooper, who has called for a «crackdown on gangs», criticized that there is «a criminal network involved» in taking children out of the shelters and that the British government was «completely failing to stop them».
For their part, the Greens, who called for the minister’s appointment before Parliament after the publication of an investigation that brought to light the situation of minors in the country, have denounced the «astonishing complacency and incompetence» of the Interior.
However, Conservative MP Tim Loughton has described the administration of «temporary» accommodation for asylum seekers as a «gray area» between the ministerial portfolio and local authorities.
A newspaper investigation by ‘The Guardian’ uncovered over the weekend the alleged abduction of dozens of underage asylum seekers housed in a Brighton hotel run by the Home Office and falling into the hands of criminal gangs. These events seem to be repeated in other facilities in the south of England.
A worker of the company Mitie, subcontracted by the Home Office, and sources from the child protection services reported the kidnapping of minors in the middle of the street who were put into cars. «The minors are literally kidnapped in front of the building. They disappear and are never found again. The traffickers take them away in the middle of the street,» the source explained.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
