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Tory minister admits that 200 child asylum-seekers have gone missing
A boy leaves the Sheffield Metropolitan Hotel in Blonk Street in August 2021

TWO HUNDRED child asylum-seekers have gone missing from hotels in which they were placed by the Home Office, a minister admitted today.

Charities said the department had repeatedly ignored warnings against placing unaccompanied child asylum-seekers in hotels following reports that dozens have been kidnapped by gangs. 

After the ministry initially dismissed claims from a whistleblower that children were being abducted from hotels as “not true,” Home Office minister Simon Murray admitted the figure, including at least one girl and at least 13 children under 16, in the House of Lords. Most of the missing children were Albanian, he added.

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