An investigative report by the British daily newspaper The Guardian uncovered the alleged kidnapping of dozens of underage asylum seekers housed in a Home Office hotel in Brighton, a situation that may have been repeated in other establishments.
According to Europa Press, citing a British newspaper, criminal networks kidnap minors.
According to an employee of Mitje, a facility and real estate management company subcontracted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as according to sources in the child protection service, minors are abducted right in the middle of the street and put into cars.
“The minors are literally abducted in front of the building. They disappear and are never found again. The traffickers take them in the middle of the street,” the source explained.
The police have repeatedly warned the Home Office about the vulnerability of minors staying in a hotel after arriving in the United Kingdom without any protection from criminal networks.
Some 600 unaccompanied minors have passed through a hotel in Sussex County in the past 18 months, with 136 missing. More than half, 79 people, are missing.
Mitya’s source described how he saw minors being picked up from a similar hotel in Hythe, Kent, run by the Home Office, and he estimates that about 10% of minors disappear from these facilities each week.
Labor Party (opposition) home affairs spokesman Yvette Cooper called the news “truly appalling and scandalous” and asked the government to tell how many minors have disappeared and what is being done to find them.
Home Secretary Swella Braverman “failed despite the repeated warnings she received about completely inadequate protection for minors,” Cooper criticized.
“This is an absolute disregard for the duties of the Home Office, a colossal failure to protect and keep minors safe and to pursue dangerous networks that put them at terrible risk,” he added.
According to official figures, unaccompanied minors spend an average of 16.5 days in hotels run by the Ministry of the Interior before receiving assistance from municipal social services across the country.