The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Tuesday voiced alarm over the high number of missing children in Africa, reported The Africa News.
According to a report published by the committee on the International Day of the Disappearance, more than 25,000 children are missing across the continent. The children represent 40% of the total 64,000 missing persons in Africa.
Insecurity is one of the major reasons leading to the disappearance. It has led thousands of people, including children to cross borders, the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea in search of a safe place and a better life, far from these conflicts. Notably, there are more than 35 armed conflicts across the continent.
Such movements carry great risks and disappearance is at the top of the list, according to the NGO.
“Unfortunately, the 25,000 cases recorded do not reflect the full extent of this tragic and often overlooked humanitarian problem according to the committee,” said Patrick Youssef, the ICRC’s regional director for Africa.
Youssef said that there is no doubt that there are many more missing children who are still left to be counted.
In a statement, the ICRC said that the disappearance of children put them at high risk of facing exploitation, violence, and psychological distress. The group said that there are more than 5,200 documented cases of unaccompanied children in Africa.
To promote African States to prevent disappearances and better inform families about the fate of missing persons, the ICRC and the African Union organized a high-level meeting on missing migrants in Addis Ababa on Tuesday, August 30.
In 2021, the ICRC along with Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies helped locate and clarify the fate of 4,200 people and reunited 1,200 families across Africa.
However, according to the ICRC, the number of documented cases of missing persons on the continent continues to rise.
