Refugees as young as nine missing from care

CHILD refugees who crossed the Channel into Britain have gone missing from almost every authority responsible for caring for them, it was reported last night.

Migrants as young as nine have disappeared from care 744 times this year, with at least 37 aged 13 or under. Some are feared to have been kidnapped by traffickers, forced into labour or are at risk of sexual abuse.

With the unanticipated resettlement of thousands of Afghan refugees coupled with record numbers of Channel crossings by small boat, local authorities are overwhelmed by the numbers of migrants desperate for

‘Feared kidnapped’

housing and care. According to The Times, one child refugee was reported missing 159 times in 12 months.

In a case this summer, a 15-year-old Vietnamese boy named Tuan disappeared from the hotel he was placed in by the Home Office and is thought to have been forced into slavery having been spotted with a stranger in London, the newspaper reported.

At least 5,000 child refugees were in care last year in the UK – a figure that has doubled in just nine years. Freedom on Information requests found there have been almost 10,000 reports of missing children in the past decade.

A government spokesman said it took ‘any child going missing extremely seriously’.