Border Force officers assisting a child. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images
Council data obtained by the Guardian shows 345 children have gone missing in recent years, many probably taken by traffickers
More than 50 lone child asylum seekers who disappeared soon after arriving in the UK and while in the care of the authorities are still missing, according to data obtained by the Guardian.
Many of the missing children arrived in small boats or hidden in the backs of lorries and are thought to have been taken by traffickers. Kent is often the place where they arrive.
Freedom of information data from Kent county council (KCC), which is controlled by Reform UK, has documented 345 children going missing from their area, with 56 of those still missing.
Between 2021 and 2023, when the Home Office operated two hotels for children in Kent, along with hotels in other areas, 132 children went missing from those two hotels. Of these, 108 were later found but 24 are still missing. Between 2020 and August 2025, 213 children went missing from the council’s reception centres for this group of children, with 182 found and 32 still missing.
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Esme Madill, of the Migrant and Refugee Children’s Legal Unit at Islington Law Centre, said: “These figures are shocking. Behind each number is a frightened child who will already have experienced egregious human rights abuses before arriving in the UK seeking safety. When we represent children who have escaped after being trafficked whilst ‘missing’ in the UK, we see how their mental and physical health is permanently harmed by the abuse they experience during this time.
“For one child to go missing represents an abject failure of the state to protect the most fragile and abused in their care. These numbers are in the hundreds.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to members of his country’s internal spy agency on October 27, 2025 in Jerusalem. (Photo by Benjamin Netanyahu/X)
Israel accused Hamas of breaking the US-brokered ceasefire in a manner in which no one was physically harmed. Gaza officials say Israel has violated the truce 125 times, killing or wounding hundreds of Palestinians.
Following Israel’s 125 reported violations of the October 10 Gaza ceasefire in attacks that have killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered “powerful strikes” in response to an alleged Hamas breach of the deal in which no one was physically harmed.
Netanyahu’s office said the right-wing prime minister instructed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to immediately carry out the attacks on the flattened strip, where two years of genocidal war and siege have left at least 248,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, hundreds of thousands of others starving; and the vast majority of Gaza’s more than 2 million people forcibly displaced.
Israel said the decision to escalate came after IDF invaders—none of whom were reportedly harmed—came under fire in southern Gaza, and amid Israeli anger over alleged Hamas subterfuge regarding the return of bodily remains from an Israeli hostage abducted during the October 7, 2023 attack.
Netanyahu’s announcement also came on the same day that the prime minister appeared in a Jerusalem court to continue his testimony in his ongoing trial for alleged fraud, breach of trust, and bribery. His testimony was cut off three hours early due to unspecified “security developments.” Critics, including relatives of hostages, have accused Netanyahu of unnecessarily prolonging the war in order to further delay his trial. The prime minister denies any wrongdoing.
Hamas said it would respond to Israel’s escalation by delaying the handover of the remaining 13 dead hostages it either holds or is trying to locate. The armed resistance group, which governs Gaza, said Tuesday it had recovered the body of another hostage.
The Gaza Government Media Office responded to Israel’s accusation of Hamas ceasefire violations by noting what it said are 125 incidents in which Israeli forces broke the truce, “resulting in the killing of 94 Palestinians and the injury of more than 344 others.”
Israeli violations of the current ceasefire include several massacres, such as the October 18 bombing of a bus that killed at least 11 members of the Abu Shaaban family, who were trying to return to inspect their home in Gaza City. Among the victims were three women and seven children ages 5-13.
Israel was also accused of nearly 1,000 violations of the previous ceasefire earlier this year—breaches that officials said left at least 116 civilians dead and nearly 500 others wounded.
There has been scant reporting of Israeli ceasefire breaches in the US corporate media. In a glaring act of apparently selective inattention, the Associated Press on Tuesday called Netanyahu’s strike order “a new test for the US-brokered ceasefire.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAOrcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
Destruction is seen in a cemetery resulting from Israeli attacks as Palestinians try to locate the graves of their relatives in Beit Lahia, Gaza on February 3, 2025. (Photo: Khalil Ramzi Alkahlut/Anadolu via Getty Images)
British lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn called for Israeli officials, and countries that have funded the bombardment of Gaza, to “face justice for every single life lost.”
Authorities in Gaza and human rights advocates have warned for months that because of the decimation of the enclave’s healthcare system and civil services, the official death toll was likely a significant undercount—and on Monday, officials said thousands more Palestinians had been confirmed killed by Israel’s U.S.-backed onslaught since October 2023.
Salama Maarouf, head of Gaza’s government media office, told the press gathered at the mostly destroyed al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City that the death toll currently stands at 61,709, with thousands of Palestinians who had previously been listed as missing now presumed dead.
The death toll was previously reported to be 47,487 on Saturday. Journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News said Monday that the number is rapidly going up as “people returning to their neighborhoods discover mass graves and people buried under the rubble or killed and their bodies left at the scene.”
Maarouf said officials now believe the bodies of about 76% of those killed have been recovered, but noted that 14,222 people are still believed to be trapped under rubble or inaccessible to rescue and recovery crews.
Those confirmed to have been killed include 17,881 children, including 214 newborn babies. More than 200 journalists were also killed by Israeli forces before a cease-fire deal was reached in mid-January.
Days after the cease-fire agreement, journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo News noted that the death toll was expected to explode due to the bodies “recovered.”
“The horrors we are about to discover if a cease-fire actually holds will underscore why Israel didn’t want international journalists inside—and why they kept targeting Palestinian journalists,” said Thakker.
The updated death toll was publicized as mediators from the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt began talks on the second phase of the three-part cease-fire agreement. In the first phase, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are set to be freed from Israeli prisons by March, and 33 Israeli hostages are scheduled to be released by Hamas as Palestinians return to their neighborhoods—many of which have been reduced to rubble—and hundreds of aid trucks are allowed into the enclave.
The talks that began Monday aim to establish a permanent cease-fire, with Israeli forces making a complete exit from Gaza.
Fighting could begin again in March if a long-term deal isn’t reached in the coming weeks.
British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn said that as the “true scale of Israel’s atrocities” emerges, “officials must face justice for every single life lost.”
“So should those who continued to send weapons,” said Corbyn, “knowing full well they were enabling genocide.”
As humanitarian and medical workers continued recovery missions in Gaza, the death toll in the West Bank on Monday rose to 70 since the beginning of 2025, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israeli forces and settlers have waged attacks in several West Bank towns and refugee camps in recent weeks, and the Trump administration said late last month that it would continue providing military aid to Israel as it froze nearly all foreign assistance.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAGenocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.
