A journalistic investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian revealed an alleged kidnapping of dozens of minor asylum seekers staying in a Brighton hotel under the Ministry of the Interior, a situation that may be repeated in other facilities.
According to Europa Press, citing the British newspaper, minors are kidnapped by criminal networks.
According to an employee of Mitie, a facilities and property management company subcontracted by the Ministry of the Interior, and also according to sources from the child protection services, young people are abducted in the middle of the street and put in cars.
“The minors are literally kidnapped in front of the building. They disappear and are never found again. The traffickers take them in the middle of the street”, explained a source.
The police have repeatedly warned the Ministry of the Interior about the vulnerability of minors staying at the hotel after arriving in the United Kingdom, without any type of protection against criminal networks.
Around 600 unaccompanied minors have passed through the hotel in Sussex County over the past 18 months and 136 have been reported missing. More than half, 79, are still missing.
Mitie’s source described how he saw minors being taken from a similar hotel in Hythe, Kent, run by the Home Office, and estimates that around 10% of minors go missing from these facilities every week.
The internal affairs spokeswoman for the Labor Party (opposition), Yvette Cooper, described the news as “truly horrific and shocking” and asked the government to report how many minors have disappeared and what is being done to find them.
The Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, “has failed despite the repeated warnings she has received about the absolutely inadequate protection of minors,” Cooper criticized.
“This is a complete disregard of the functions of the Home Office, a colossal failure to protect and secure minors and to go after dangerous networks that put them at terrible risk,” he added.
According to official data, unaccompanied minors spend an average of 16.5 days in hotels managed by the Ministry of the Interior before being cared for by municipal social services throughout the country.
Source: TSF
