MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to Europol, there are some 270,000 children among the refugees, who arrived in the European countries from the crisis-torn countries in 2015. Dozens of thousands of these minors were unaccompanied by adults and disappeared. Their fate sparked concerns in the 28-nation block as they could become victims of human traffickers.
"It’s not unreasonable to say that we’re looking at 10,000-plus children. Not all of them will be criminally exploited; some might have been passed on to family members. We just don’t know where they are, what they’re doing or whom they are with," Brian Donald told the Observer newspaper.
The European Union is currently struggling to manage the massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people leaving their countries of origin in the Middle East and North Africa for Europe. Over 1.83 million illegal border crossings have been detected by the EU border agency Frontex during 2015.
