Dozens of children who went missing from asylum hotels still unaccounted for years later

Forty people who went missing from asylum seeker hotels as children years ago have still not been found.

All but two of them are now adults, parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights said in a new report.

England's Children's Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has described their ongoing disappearance as an "unacceptable failure" and demanded the government set out what it's doing to locate them.

It comes three years after it emerged that more than 400 unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the UK had disappeared from hotels commandeered by the Home Office. Some of the kids were as young as 12.

Dame Angela Eagle, in a letter to the committee last year in her role as border security and asylum minister, said some who had been found were "in exploitative situations and may have been trafficked".

In its report published on Thursday, the committee said it was "extremely concerned" about the number of youngsters who are still missing.

It called on the Home Office to make clear what's being done to find them, investigate why they went missing, and avoid unaccompanied asylum-seeking children going missing in the future. It wants an update every three months.

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The use of hotels has long been controversial with the public but also with some human rights campaigners who said they were not suitable accommodation for children.

The then Conservative government said the use of hotels was necessary due to an "unsustainable" rise in small boat crossings over the Channel.

Their use has continued under Labour, though they have vowed to stop this by the next election and favour different locations such as former military barracks.

A government spokesperson said: "The safety and wellbeing of children is paramount, and we take any child going missing extremely seriously.

"The Home Office-operated accommodation for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children closed in January 2024. Since then, the vast majority of children reported missing from those settings have subsequently been located.

"Police forces are responsible for investigating missing children cases, and we continue to review our records, share relevant information with them and work closely with local authorities and safeguarding partners to support those investigations."

(c) Sky News 2026: Dozens of children who went missing from asylum hotels still unaccounted for years later