However, authorities have failed to explain their disappearance, the head of domestic intelligence has warned that Islamist recruiters are specifically targeting refugee minors at an alarming rate.
“5,835 refugee minors had disappeared in Germany over the past year, 555 of them under the age of 14” German media said on Monday.
The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) told The Local at the time that sometimes missing children will turn up again and that the numbers could be distorted if one child is reported as missing in multiple places, or with slightly different personal information.
Many refugee minors make the arduous journey to Germany without any adult supervision. Back in early February, the Ministry of Family Affairs, responding to media reports about the status of refugee minors in the country, said there was no reason to believe thousands of minors and children had gone missing.
Most of the vanished minors came from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea, Morocco and Algeria, the Interior Ministry told the newspaper but did not give an explanation for the cause of the alarming numbers.
The probe was launched in response to an inquiry sent to the German Parliament. Green Party politician Luise Amtsberg slammed the government for not taking any action regarding the problem. She said the authorities are not taking seriously “the dangers of forced prostitution and exploitation.”
Several members of the European Parliament said late last month that missing underage refugees might be victims of criminal organizations involved in sex, slavery or organ trafficking.