Ten thousand refugee children disappear in Europe, according to Europol

USPA NEWS - Ten thousand refugee children are missing in Europe, where they arrived from Syria and other conflict zones. As revealed on Sunday the Spanish public television (TVE), Europol fears that many of them have fallen victim to people-trafficking mafias.

Europol sources have confirmed to TVE they are investigating the disappearance of ten thousand children who crossed European borders between the flow of refugees from Syria and other conflict zones. They traveled alone and, according to Europol, half of them were lost track after arriving in Italy and another thousand in southern Sweden. Although European Police did not rule out that a percentage of them are with relatives living in Europe, without that reunification has been communicated to the Community authorities, it is feared that the rest have fallen into the hands of mafia networks trafficking in people.

European Police keeps track of several German and Romanian criminal organizations suspected of trafficking in persons and that could be behind the disappearances. Last year they came to Europe, traveling alone, 270,000 refugee children. Only one tenth of them, 26,000 minors, were hosted by Save the Children. Europol believes that some of the rest might be a victim of sexual abuse by the mafias that smuggle people.

Europol has warned European governments of the existence of a "new criminal trafficking organization" with a very sophisticated structure that have arisen with the recent migration crisis in Europe and taking advantage of the unaccompanied minors and, therefore, they are unprotected. Disappearances, which are not reported, often because of ignorance of the families of the children, would occur just across European borders and are detected by contrasting input data refugee with those identified in the shelters.