The British government has still not found forty young people who went missing from asylum accommodation in 2023 whilst still minors. This is according to a new report by the parliamentary human rights committee. The committee describes this as “extremely worrying” and wants the government to report on the search every three months.
A total of 472 unaccompanied minor asylum seekers went missing from hotels where the British government had accommodated them. 432 of them have since been found. Of the 40 who are still missing, two are still minors. The other 38 are now aged 18 or over.
From 2021, the British government placed unaccompanied minor asylum seekers in hotels to address the shortage of regular accommodation places. In 2023, it became clear that hundreds of children had disappeared from those hotels. According to the Human Rights Commission, some were as young as twelve.
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