Rabat – At least 440 children, including 35 babies, have died since 2018 during attempts to reach Europe, according to data compiled by the non-profit UNITED network.
The majority of the children died off the coasts of Morocco, Turkey, and Libya, the Brussels Times reported.
Between 2018 and June 2021, about 33 pregnant women also died while attempting to reach Europe.
Among the children who died while trying to reach Europe is a 2-year old child who was killed by a police bullet on “a Belgian motorway,” the Brussels Times reported.
The victims also include a 17-year-old migrant who died of suffocation in the back of a lorry traveling from Zeebrugge in Belgium to Essex in England. The incident took place in 2019.
Recent data from Lost in Europe, a cross-border journalist collective, show that between January 2018 and December 2020, at least 18,292 unaccompanied minors went missing in Europe.
The Guardian and Lost in Europe teamed up to carry out an investigation, which revealed that the majority of children who went missing were of Moroccan origin.
Other children among the missing migrants are also Algerians, Guineans, and migrants from Afghanistan.
The Guardian and Lost in Europe also collected data on missing unaccompanied minors from 27 EU countries, in addition to Norway, Moldova, Switzerland, and the UK.
Commenting on the dire findings, Federica Toscano, Head of advocacy and migration at Missing Children Europe, said that the high number of missing children is a “symptom of a child-protection system that does not work.”
As European governments adopt a heavy-handed approach to tackle irregular migration, criminal organizations are “increasingly targeting migrant children, especially unaccompanied minors,” Toscano explained.
She warned that many of the migrants who leave their respective countries for a better future in Europe end up becoming victims of forced labor and sexual exploitation networks.
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