Some 200 Children Seeking Asylum In UK Gone Missing - Home Office

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th January, 2023) About 200 unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and placed in special hotels run by the UK Home Office have gone missing, Home Office Minister Simon Murray said on Monday.

Last week, the Guardian reported that dozens of children had been kidnapped by gangs from a Brighton hotel, with many of them abducted off the street near the hotel and bundled into cars.

"The Home Office have no power to detain unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in these hotels and we do know that some of them go missing. Many of them that go missing are subsequently traced... 200 of the children remain missing... Of the 200 missing, 13 are under the age of 16," Murray told the UK House of Lords.

The official stated that around 88% of those children were of Albanian origin and had come to the UK unaccompanied.

Illegal migrants often seek any opportunity to cross the English Channel and end up in the UK, lured by social welfare, the possibility of obtaining refugee status and financial support. In August 2022, the UK recorded the highest number of monthly border crossings since 2019, with more than 13,500 people crossing the English Channel to enter the country. In October, UK media reported that the country was spending almost 7 million Pounds ($8.5 million) per day on hotels for asylum seekers.