DHAKA: More than 10,000 migrant children may have disappeared after arriving in Europe over the past two years.

The EU’s police intelligence unit says, reports the BBC.

Europol said thousands of vulnerable minors had vanished after registering with state authorities.

It warned of children and young people being forced into sexual exploitation and slavery by criminal gangs.

Save the Children says some 26,000 child migrants arrived in Europe last year without any family.

It is the first time Europol has given a Europe-wide estimate of how many might be missing.

‘It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children,’ Europol’s chief of staff told the Observer newspaper.

‘Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with.’

Officials in Italy warned in May 2015 that almost 5,000 children had disappeared from asylum reception centers since the previous summer.

BDST: 2000 HRS, JAN 31, 2016
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