More than two dozen unaccompanied underage migrants rescued by way of the humanitarian send Ocean Viking and brought in by way of France have long gone lacking from their reception centre, native government have mentioned.
The council within the southern Var division mentioned the general public prosecutor were advised that 26 of 44 younger other folks below complete prison age on the centre had run away.
“Three of the 44 minors had already run away… after being taken into care”, the dept’s president Jean-Louis Masson advised Le Figaro newspaper. On Thursday morning there have been 23 extra minors lacking”, he added.
“This was once foreseeable for us,” Christophe Paquette, deputy director general in charge of solidarity at the Var departmental council, told AFP.
He explained that most of the 26 minors were Eritreans who “by no means keep” because “they’ve explicit targets in northern European international locations” such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland or Germany, where they want to join their families or relatives.
The young migrants had not been held in a closed waiting zone, unlike the 190 adults who also docked in the southern French port of Toulon a week ago after two weeks stranded in the Mediterranean aboard the Ocean Viking, the rescue ship chartered by the European humanitarian organisation SOS Méditerranée.
“Our challenge is to give protection to them and to not detain them,” Christophe Paquette added, stressing that the department had “reported their departure” after “looking to dissuade them”.
The minors who ran away “behaved in an exemplary means, they left thanking us”, he insisted.
“The phenomenon of unaccompanied minors operating away is common, for plenty of causes, circle of relatives ties in some other European nation as an example,” Toulon public prosecutor Samuel Finielz told reporters.
“Providing safe haven is a segment of kid coverage which can’t be thought to be as confinement,” he added.
Last month, the Ocean Viking charity rescue ship saved 234 migrants, including 57 children, as they tried to reach Catania in Sicily after crossing the Mediterranean from North Africa.
But Italy refused to allow the ship to dock for three weeks, forcing the vessel to sail to France.
The French government called Italy “irresponsible” and “inhumane” for not aiding the ship, accusing the right-wing Italian government of a “breach of trust”.
Paris responded by saying it would refuse to take 3,500 asylum seekers from Italy it was due to accept under a European migrant-sharing “solidarity” plan.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — who was elected promising to stop the flow of migrants between Africa and Italy — responded by describing Paris’s reaction as “incomprehensible and unjustified”.
The row looked as if it would calm down best on Monday after talks between Italian and French presidents Sergio Mattarella and Emmanuel Macron.
Italy has noticed a pointy building up in migrant landings this 12 months. But over the last two years, it has admitted fewer refugees as a share of its inhabitants and has processed fewer asylum requests.
EU inner ministers will meet on 25 November in Brussels to talk about migration coverage after the France-Italy disaster, the Czech Presidency of the EU Council mentioned on Thursday.
