Hundreds of refugee children missing in Sweden

Over 500 unaccompanied migrant children have gone missing after arriving in Sweden this year and the number of homeless people is growing, Swedish media reported on Thursday.

The number of asylum seeker children who go underground has gone up from 288 in 2015 to 560 this year, Xinhua news agency citing the Swedish Migration Agency.

Currently, at least 1,650 migrants who applied for asylum in Sweden as children are missing. Some have been missing for years and are now adults, while over 600 are still under 18, said Swedish Television.

A total of 327 of the unaccompanied minors who have disappeared since 2010 were between 13 and 15 years old when they went missing, 167 were between seven and 12, and 190 were under seven years old.

Swedish Television spoke to several volunteer organisations as well as to the border police in western Sweden and they confirmed that there are more and more failed asylum seekers living on the streets and that the wanted list was growing.

--IANS

lok/vd