An MP has described a police chase which took place after two children were “collected” from a hotel housing asylum-seeking children.
Hove MP Peter Kyle said officers in his constituency pursued a car that had picked up two children from outside the Home Office approved accommodation after concerns about what was happening.
It comes after the government confirmed that about 200 unaccompanied asylum-seeking children remain missing after initially being housed in hotels since July 2022.
There have been reports that dozens of youngsters have been abducted from hotels in the Brighton and Hove area.
Speaking about one of the hotels used to house child asylum seekers in his constituency, Mr Kyle told the Commons: “Just last year, Sussex Police pursued a car that had collected two children from outside this hotel.
“When they managed to get the car to safety, they released two child migrants and they arrested one of the members who was driving it – who was a gang leader who was there to coerce the children into crime.”
Responding to an urgent question, immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the Commons today that out of 4,600 unaccompanied children who have entered the UK since July 2021, 440 have gone missing at some point, with only half of them returning.
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He told the House: “Two hundred children remain missing, 13 of whom are under 16 years old, and only one is female.
“When any child goes missing, a multi-agency missing persons protocol is mobilised alongside the police and relevant local authority to establish their whereabouts and to ensure that they are safe.
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“Many of those who have gone missing are subsequently traced and located. Of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking children still missing, 88% are Albanian nationals; the remaining 12% are from Afghanistan, Egypt, India Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey.”
Children ‘being dumped by Home Office’
Mr Kyle, a Labour MP, said he was aware of 76 children who had vanished from one hotel.
It comes after an investigationby The Observerat the weekend reported that dozens of unaccompanied child migrants had been kidnapped by criminal gangs in Brighton.
Mr Kyle said: “The uncomfortable truth for us is if one child who was related to one of us in this room went missing, the world would stop.
“But in the community I represent, a child has gone missing, then five went missing, then a dozen went missing, then 50 went missing and currently today 76 are missing – and nothing is happening.”
Mr Jenrick said he had not seen evidence of children being kidnapped but the allegations were “extremely serious” and he would “continue to make inquiries”.
In the meantime, he said he would like Mr Kyle to join him on a visit to the hotel so they could review the situation.
Brighton MP Caroline Lucas accused the Home Office of “dumping vulnerable children” in hotels then shirking in their responsibility to look after them.
‘Frankly, it is sickening’
She asked how many of the missing children have been “kidnapped, trafficked, put into forced labour” and said it was “not clear” whether the Home Office was “prepared to take legal as well as practical responsibility” to find them.
“I was told before Christmas that government lawyers were deliberating over their ultimate legal responsibility. We need to know the outcome today,” she said.
Ms Lucas called for a special operation to find the missing children adding: “This feels like the plight of girls in Rotherham who were treated like they didn’t matter. And frankly, it is sickening.”
She added: “We are not asking him to detain children. We are asking the Home Office to apply some basic safeguarding so we can keep them safe”.
Mr Jenrick insisted cases of asylum-seeking children going missing from Home Office accommodation are treated in “exactly the same way as any young person who goes missing”.
Yvette Cooper, Labour’s spokesperson on immigration, accused the government of “a total dereliction of duty that is putting children at risk”.
The children’s commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, said the reports of children disappearing from hotels “have highlighted, once again, the vulnerability of these children, who are in limbo, with a concerted group of people determined to exploit them.”
She said in a letter to the Home Office: “I am concerned for the safety of this group of children whose vulnerability is exacerbated by not speaking English, many of whom have no support network and are not aware of their rights.”
In a hostel in northern France, the atmosphere was tense.
A father and his family were waiting for a call, a sign sea conditions were right and it is finally time to go.
After fleeing from Kurdistan, they’ve paid around €8000 (£6,850) to cross the Channel on a dinghy provided by smugglers who value money over life.
“We don’t have any other option except this dinghy. The surveillance for the trucks [crossing the Channel] is very strong and that is why we have to take this journey. We will either die or succeed,” Mohammed said ahead of the journey.
To tell their story safely, all the family’s names have been changed.
The UK wasn’t their destination of choice; for years Germany was their home but then, after a failed asylum bid and threatened with deportation last month, they ran.
If they stayed, Mohammed says they would have been sent back home where he fears he could be killed.
But after years of making friends and plans, overnight his family’s lives changed.
His teenage daughter Sara says when she was told they were leaving at first she didn’t believe it.
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“I was like, no, this is going to be a bad joke,” she explains, “Then the day we left, I looked at my friends… they didn’t know that I was leaving and we will never see each other again.”
Last week the family was among them, cramming into a rickety vessel with around 60 others.
“It was a difficult and dangerous journey that no one was expecting to survive. We were all thinking that our lives would end in a matter of seconds,” Mohammed says.
The boat left a French beach near Dunkirk at 10pm.
After around an hour into the journey they ran out of fuel and then drifted for hours.
The conditions meant children were screaming and crying.
Many onboard were being sick and everyone was soaked with freezing water.
When the French coastguard arrived, 25 people asked to be rescued but the other 36 refused, determined to keep pushing ahead.
Desperate to reach UK waters, they paddled with their hands and then used the dregs of the fuel to give them one last boost until they were picked up by the UK coastguard.
Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning.
Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.
In the audio, one official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering so until we get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another responds saying he would “grab the workers” but it was too late.
A second later, a voice is heard saying: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
In other developments, investigators at the National Safety Transportation Board have confirmed that the cargo ship’s data recorder has now been recovered – and they are examining whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash.
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0:30
New angle shows moment bridge hit
The Dali ship ploughed into one of the bridge’s supports and, in an instant, the 1.6-mile-long structure had fallen into the Patapsco River, along with vehicles and workers who were on it at the time.
Six workers missing after the collapse are presumed dead, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders has confirmed.
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Officials say the rescue mission for the group has now become a recovery operation.
It comes as Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, was named as one of the six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore said he spoke to the families of the victims, assuring them since the mission had transitioned from search and rescue to recovery he would “put every possible resource to bring [them] a sense of closure”.
He praised the “true heroism” of the first responders who “saved countless lives that night”.
Mr Moore also said he was “overwhelmed” by the amount of support from both the Democratic and Republican parties as he stressed the importance of getting the bridge rebuilt.
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1:20
‘True accountability’ for Baltimore bridge collapse
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
He told reporters: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.
“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel.”
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0:59
Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
Mr Biden added that this meant local authorities were able to close the bridge before it was struck, which “undoubtedly saved lives”.
He continued: “Our prayers are with everyone involved in this terrible accident and all the families [affected], especially those waiting for news of their loved one right now. I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime.”
The Key Bridge carries the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Its main section spans 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.
Audio has emerged of a first responder call as officials halted traffic on both sides of the Francis Scott Key Bridge moments before it collapsed.
The cargo ship had issued a mayday call to alert authorities it had lost power before it collided with the Baltimore bridge on Tuesday morning.
Following the call, Maryland Transportation Authority Police Dispatch and Response officials acted swiftly, shutting down the north and south sides of the bridge.
In the audio, one official instructs: “Hold all traffic on the Key Bridge… There’s a ship approaching that just lost their steering so until we get that under control, we’ve got to stop all traffic.
“Make sure no one’s on the bridge right now. There’s a crew up there… You might want to notify the foreman to see if we can get them off the bridge temporarily.”
Another responds saying he would “grab the workers” but it was too late.
A second later, a voice is heard saying: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever… everybody. The whole bridge just collapsed.”
In other developments, investigators at the National Safety Transportation Board have confirmed that the cargo ship’s data recorder has now been recovered – and they are examining whether contaminated fuel played a role in the crash.
Advertisement
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:30
New angle shows moment bridge hit
The Dali ship ploughed into one of the bridge’s supports and, in an instant, the 1.6-mile-long structure had fallen into the Patapsco River, along with vehicles and workers who were on it at the time.
Six workers missing after the collapse are presumed dead, the executive vice president of Brawner Builders has confirmed.
Officials say the rescue mission for the group has now become a recovery operation.
It comes as Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, was named as one of the six people on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has promised that he will visit Baltimore “as soon as possible”, adding that the federal government will cover the “full cost” of rebuilding the bridge – which experts say could be over $600m (£474m).
He told reporters: “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication, no other reason to believe there’s any intentional act here.
“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
0:59
Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
Mr Biden added that this meant local authorities were able to close the bridge before it was struck, which “undoubtedly saved lives”.
He continued: “Our prayers are with everyone involved in this terrible accident and all the families [affected], especially those waiting for news of their loved one right now. I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime.”
The Key Bridge carries the Interstate 695 highway over the Patapsco River southeast of the Baltimore metropolitan area.
Its main section spans 1,200 feet and was one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world upon its completion, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
The Dali was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, where it was damaged, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.