Europe: the mystical disappearance of thousands of young refugees

For 2 years, more than 18,000 refugee children simply disappeared, although they were in Europe under state guardianship, writes DW.

From 2018 to 2020, 18,292 children were “lost” in the vastness of Europe, who arrived in the EU in search of a better life or fleeing the war, unaccompanied by adults. Most of them with great difficulty reached the cherished goal from Algeria, Morocco, Eritrea. The underage refugees were under state custody, but mysteriously disappeared. The DW edition tells about the results of a joint investigation by the British Guardian, the Dutch TV and radio company VPRO and the German media company rbb.

As it turned out during the investigation, Denmark, France and Romania, for example, do not have relevant data at all, and Bulgaria does not distinguish between children with parents and unaccompanied ones. In Germany, 7,806 unaccompanied minor refugees were reported missing during the biennium. Of these, 7082 children were still found, but 724 are considered missing. At the same time, it is clarified that the data are approximate, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, referring to the shortcomings of statistical studies.

Experts draw attention to the fact that the imperfection of statistics or the absence of it creates huge risks for the exploitation of refugee children. Over the past 2 decades, the number of migrants has increased by 110 million, a significant part of them are minors, often unaccompanied by adults. Among the countries with the largest number of migrants are Germany, USA, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Great Britain. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as noted by the international human rights organization Amnesty International, there has been a significant deterioration in the human rights situation around the world.

…



Source link