A Somali boy came to an asylum reception center in Eastern Norway on an autumn day in 2014. Just over a year later, he disappeared. The boy had just turned nine at the time. The nine-year-old is one of 432 whose whereabouts the authorities still do not know. These are children and young people who have come to Norway without their parents, and who have disappeared from asylum reception centers and care centers during the past eight years. At the weekend, news told about Agathe (16), who was supposed to go on the bus, but got lost. The vast majority are young people over the age of 15, but among the missing are also very young children. Five of the children were aged ten or younger when they disappeared. The youngest only five. Nearly four weeks before the police registered him missing, all the boy’s belongings were found again in Eastern Norway. At school, the desk was empty. A woman who said she was the aunt came to Norway at the same time as the boy. When he disappeared, she told reception staff that the boy had been picked up by his mother. No one saw the mother, nor was she registered as an asylum seeker in Norway. When the boy arrived in the country, he told the police that three unknown men in Somalia had cut his father’s throat and taken his mother with them. He hadn’t seen her since. Two days after the nine-year-old disappeared, the asylum reception contacted the police. It would still be nearly four weeks before the police opened a case. Photo: RONALD HOLE FOSSÅSKARET / news We have spoken to the police officer who answered the phone when the asylum reception called to report the boy missing. He does not remember the nine-year-old, and therefore cannot answer why nothing happened after he hung up. What he can say is that a phone call to the police is not automatically a report. Everyone must be looked for A survey carried out by news in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Journalism (SUJO) shows that these children and young people are rarely actively looked for. In several cases, the police have only made a phone call to the asylum reception or care center from which they disappeared. This is despite the fact that a combined Storting in 2015 decided that unaccompanied minor asylum seekers should be searched for. We have tried to find out what happened to the children who were ten years old and younger when they disappeared. The Directorate of Immigration (UDI) will not provide access and points to the duty of confidentiality. The police have only found one of the five children in their systems: the nine-year-old boy. The other four children are not in the police registers. – It is alarming, says Jon Ole Martinsen, senior adviser at the Norwegian Organization for Asylum Seekers (NOAS). – We would never tolerate this injustice if it were Norwegian children who disappeared. Jon Ole Martinsen is a spokesperson for NOAS. Photo: Silje Rognsvåg / news 102 children and young people are missing in Nordland We have gained insight into the disappearance cases of unaccompanied minor asylum seekers who disappeared between 2015–2020 at seven police districts. One of these is Nordland. Here, 117 children and young people have disappeared during this period, figures from the state show. The police have only opened a case against 15 of them. 102 of them are missing. Head of prosecution at the Nordland police district, Stig Morten Løkkebakken, tells news that it is the reception centers that are responsible for reporting people missing. Photo: Bente H. Johansen / news – We have no indication that we have received missing persons reports that have not been registered, but we cannot rule out that our extraction of cases is wrong because the system has weaknesses, he says. – In order to be 100% sure that we have identified all the cases, a manual review of the systems must be carried out to catch any incorrect registrations against the UDI’s lists, he continues. Criticism from the UN – When a Norwegian child disappears, heaven and earth are set in motion, the police take to social media, and the media write about the case. When an asylum child disappears, the attitude is different. So says Kirsten Kolstad Kvalø, senior adviser at the Norwegian Institution for Human Rights (NIM). She points out that Norway has been criticized three times by the UN Children’s Committee. – They have given a clear message that much more needs to be done. Photo: Charlotte Førde Skomsøy / Charlotte Førde Skomsøy Another person who is very worried about the children and young people is Line Vollebæk. She has worked for 20 years for the Outdoor Section in Oslo’s streets. – The disappearances can have serious consequences, she says. Vollebæk estimates that he has met over 100 of those who have disappeared from care centers and asylum reception centres. The youngest was 12 years old. – I have seen young people who have been forced to sell drugs, who have been subjected to violence and have probably also been subjected to sexual abuse. Photo: Marthe Sveberg This is how we have mapped the police’s work news, in collaboration with the Center for Investigative Journalism (SUJO), has obtained figures on unaccompanied minor asylum seekers who have disappeared from the Directorate of Immigration (UDI) and the Directorate for Children, Youth and Families (BURDIR). The figures have been distributed by police district. In total, 892 have disappeared in the last eight years, 432 are still missing. We have also asked all police districts for access to disappearance cases involving unaccompanied minor asylum seekers in the years 2015-2020. This is to investigate the extent to which the children and young people have been searched for, and whether all were registered as missing when they disappeared. In some districts, we have also been given access to disappearance cases involving Norwegian citizens, in order to have a basis for comparison. We have defined active search as steps beyond telephone calls to the asylum reception center or the care center where the disappearance took place. The police districts have given us the following level of access: Full access: West police district, Sør-West police district, Oslo police district, Nordland police district and East police district Partial access: Troms Police district , Sør-East Police District. Rejection: Trøndelag Police District, Agder Police District, Møre og Romsdal Police District, Finnmark Police District, Innlandet Police District. Several police districts stated that they have had problems retrieving the cases from their database, and that documents may therefore be missing. Our overall findings based on figures and documents we have seen: The police have to a small extent actively looked for the children and young people. Several of those who have disappeared are not found in the police’s systems. Not all are wanted. In several cases, missing person reports remain with the police for a long time before a case is opened. Several are described as vulnerable, mentally ill and violent – but are still not easily followed. The police are doing more in missing persons cases with Norwegian citizens. Disturbing The Norwegian Police Directorate says it is important that news shines a spotlight on this topic. They will contact the police districts to gain more knowledge about practice in such cases, and to understand why so few are registered missing. – The figures news refers to are disturbing, and unaccompanied minor asylum seekers are a particularly vulnerable group that must be taken care of.
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432 children and young people have disappeared from Norwegian asylum centres. The police rarely look for the asylum seekers – news Vestland
