UAE- Migrants' misery refuses to ebb: paper
(MENAFN- Emirates News Agency (WAM))
ABU DHABI 1st February 2016 (WAM) -- A UAE newspaper has said that Europe's police agency Europol has indicated that over 10000 unaccompanied migrant children have disappeared in Europe and the fear is that many may have been whisked away into sex trafficking rings. This comes as deeply distressing news.
The agency's chief of staff Brian Donald has told the British newspaper The Observer that the figures are for children who disappeared from the system after registering with state authorities following their arrival in Europe.
"The fate of unaccompanied child refugees is undeniably a major concern for the international community as the number of missing minors continues to increase" said The Gulf Today in an editorial on Monday.
Last year alone more than one million refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean to Europe. Europol estimates that 27 percent of the refugees that arrived in Europe in 2015 were minors.
According to UN officials the arrivals in Europe represent only a fraction of the world's current 60 million refugees and displaced people the highest level since the end of the Second World War. The problem faced by migrants and refugees never ceases to end.
On Saturday almost 40 people drowned and 75 were rescued after a boat carrying migrants to Greece sank off Turkey's western coast. Among the dead were also many children. The rescued migrants were hospitalised with hypothermia symptoms. The migrants were of Syrian Afghan and Myanmarese origin.
The images of dead children on a beach were another soul-searing reminder that the migrant crisis keeps destroying lives and families by the day. January has been the deadliest month so far for drowning between Turkey and Greece as per indications.
The International Organisation for Migration says drowning deaths are running at four times the rate of 2015 when many thousands daily sought to enter the European Union via Turkey by reaching one of more than a dozen offshore Greek islands chiefly Lesbos.
The agency recorded 805 drowning deaths of migrants on Turkey-Greece sea routes throughout 2015 and a further 218 last month alone excluding the ultimate total of Saturday's tragedy.
The international community has a duty to shelter people fleeing conflict and persecution. There is still a long way to go. Ways need to be found for safe regular ways for refugees to find safety through more resettlement and humanitarian admission programmes.
The Sharjah-based daily concluded by saying "The world cannot close its eyes when the dreams and lives of more and more migrants sink in deep-sea waters. Who would like to be in that situation unless they were escaping from the worst?"
WAM/Esraa/Moran