Robert Jenrick, Britain’s minister of state for immigration, arrives for a Cabinet assembly in Downing avenue in London on Tuesday.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

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Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Robert Jenrick, Britain’s minister of state for immigration, arrives for a Cabinet assembly in Downing avenue in London on Tuesday.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

LONDON — Opposition events and youngsters’s advocates accused the U.Okay. authorities on Tuesday of placing susceptible younger individuals at risk, after authorities mentioned scores of youngsters who arrived in Britain as asylum-seekers have disappeared.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick informed lawmakers that greater than 200 kids and youngsters beneath 18 have been lacking from government-approved lodging. He mentioned most have been teenage boys from Albania.

Labour Party lawmaker Peter Kyle mentioned 76 kids had vanished from a resort within the south coast seaside city of Brighton, certainly one of a number of across the nation the place unaccompanied kids are housed quickly.

The Observer newspaper this week cited youngster safety sources and an unidentified whistleblower working for a authorities contractor as saying dozens of kids had been kidnapped off the road exterior a Brighton resort and bundled into vehicles.

“The uncomfortable truth for us is if one child who was related to one of us in this room went missing, the world would stop,” Kyle mentioned within the House of Commons. “But in the community I represent a child has gone missing, then five went missing, then a dozen went missing, then 50 went missing and currently today 76 are missing and nothing is happening.”

Labour’s immigration spokeswoman, Yvette Cooper, accused the federal government of “a total dereliction of duty that is putting children at risk.”

Rachel de Souza, the kids’s commissioner for England, mentioned the studies of youngsters disappearing from accommodations “have highlighted, once again, the vulnerability of these children, who are in limbo, with a concerted group of people determined to exploit them.”

“I am concerned for the safety of this group of children whose vulnerability is exacerbated by not speaking English, many of whom have no support network and are not aware of their rights,” she mentioned in a letter to the Home Office.

Jenrick mentioned safety guards, nurses and social staff have been all primarily based at accommodations to make sure kids have been protected.

But he acknowledged that “we’ve no power to detain unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in these settings and we know some do go missing.”

“Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located,” he mentioned.

Jenrick mentioned he had not seen proof of youngsters being kidnapped off the road however promised to analyze additional.

“I’m not going to let the matter drop,” he mentioned.

While Britain receives fewer asylum-seekers than European nations together with Italy, Germany and France, there was a big improve within the variety of individuals making an attempt to achieve the U.Okay. in small boats throughout the English Channel. More than 45,000 individuals arrived in Britain throughout the Channel in 2022, and several other died within the try.

The authorities has pledged to cease the dangerous journeys, up to now with out success.