360 unaccompanied refugee children missing in the Netherlands

According to data from the Dutch Reception Center for Asylum Seekers (COA), the newspaper AD reported that one unaccompanied refugee child disappears from asylum centers every day in the country.

In the news, it was stated that the number of unaccompanied refugee children who received asylum applications in 2022 was 4,449 and that 360 unaccompanied children had disappeared since January 2022. In the news it was stated that the fate of the missing children, noting that some children went to their relatives in Europe, while others were suspected of falling into the hands of human smugglers.

The report claimed that confidential reports submitted to the COA by human rights institutions included claims by some residents living near the asylum center that some black children were regularly brought to the authorities by German and Dutch elders.

In the news, which claim to have seen similar cases in England, it is claimed that 136 refugee children who were placed in a hotel in Brighton, England have gone missing in the last year and a half.

UNICEF has recommended that conditions for children in Dutch asylum centers be improved, and Dutch children’s advocate Margrite Kalverboer reported last year that children at the asylum center in Ter Apel were neglected. (AA)