The NGO, Save the Children, says that there has been a 39 percent drop in the number of unaccompanied minors who arrived in Italy in 2017, compared with previous year. The interruption of the EU relocation scheme has been a disaster for hundreds of children who have been waiting to be transferred to other EU member states.
According to the NGO, Save the Children, over 15,730 minors crossed the Mediterranean to Italy in 2017. They traveled alone, without any family member or adult responsible for them, often recounting stories of abuse and horror that occurred during their journeys .
The number is 39 percent less than in 2016, when over 25,840 unaccompanied minors arrived in the country. Some 18,500 unaccompanied minors from at least 40 different nationalities are currently registered in Italy's migrant reception system.
Relocation figures
Almost four months after the EU relocation program was interrupted, 384 unaccompanied minors who are registered in the program are still waiting to be transferred, according to Save the Children. The program is an EU procedure for relocating migrants in Italy and Greece to other member states.
Around 79 children have had their requests approved but are still waiting to be transferred, while 151 are waiting to receive approval from the designated member states. Approximately 154 minors have yet to be designated to a member state.
During the two years in which the program was in force, only one in three migrants in the program was relocated from Italy and Greece (33,174 out of 98,255, which is 33.7 percent). Around 11,464 migrants were relocated from Italy compared with the 34,953 originally planned by the program (32.8 percent), of whom 1,083 were accompanied minors and only 99 unaccompanied minors.
From Greece, 21,710 migrants out of a planned 63,302 (34.4 percent) were transferred. Despite a legally binding commitment, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic refused to take part in the program. They did not accept any asylum seekers and have been referred by the European Court of Justice by the EU Commission.
Relocations are important
According to the Save the Children director for Italy - Europe, Raffaela Milano, "Despite the serious delays and numbers that were too low compared with those expected, the program in any case marked an important path especially for the most vulnerable, such as unaccompanied minors. The decision to interrupt this program meant leaving unaccompanied minors to their own devices, forcing them in many cases to place their trust in traffickers again, or to risk their lives in order to cross borders, as happens to many of the young people that we are seeing these days massed along the border crossings in the north, in Como and Ventimiglia, or as shown by the photos of migrants trying to cross the snowy Alps on foot. In 2017, 87 Eritrean minors asked our workers in Rome's Civico Zero center if they could be part of the relocation system,'' Milano added.