Over 10,000 unaccompanied migrant children have disappeared in Europe, the EU police agency Europol said Sunday, January 31, fearing many have been whisked into sex trafficking rings or the slave trade, AFP reports.
Europol's press office confirmed to AFP the figures published in British newspaper the Observer, adding that they covered 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.
"It's not unreasonable to say that we're looking at 10,000-plus children," Donald said, adding that 5,000 had disappeared in Italy alone.
Donald said there was evidence of a "criminal infrastructure" established over the last 18 months to exploit the migrant flow.
"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.
He said many of the children are "visible", and not "spirited away and held in the middle of forests".
The UN children's agency UNICEF also voiced alarm and urged European countries to do more to protect migrant children who are on their own.
