Children Fleeing Conflict In Ukraine Are “Disappearing” At Borders

Ukrainian children fleeing the war-torn country are going missing, and aid groups believe many are in danger of being kidnapped by human smugglers as 2.5 million refugees have massed at the borders.

Aid workers claim many children are forced to escape alone to neighboring countries by their desperate parents and with no one to meet them as they cross the borders.

“This is obviously extremely distressing for a child and can lead to them wandering around the station alone, disoriented and in the worst-case scenario, disappearing altogether. This, unfortunately, is not a hypothetical case – it has happened already,” Karolina Wierzbińska, a coordinator from Homo Faber, a human rights organization based in Lublin,  Poland, reported. “We are also already getting reports of cases of human trafficking.”

Aid groups warn refugees, especially women, to be careful about volunteers holding cardboard signs at border crossings offering to drive them across Europe.

“I would guess that 90 percent of those men were well-meaning people offering genuine help. Nevertheless, the situation itself was extremely chaotic, potentially frightening for anyone, let alone a person already in distress. We cannot rule out that a fraction of the people in the crowd were simply criminals, waiting to take advantage of vulnerable women,” Wierzbińska said.