About 1,089 Nigerian asylum seekers who arrived Netherlands between last year and January this year are reportedly missing, elevating serious concern in the nation.
The National Research Council (NRC) Handelsblad which collaborated with Lost in Europe in its June 2020 report, mentioned the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers (COA) recognized a significant number of the cases.
It was further learnt that there’s been a upsurge in the number of Nigerians looking for asylum in The Netherlands, with 2,461 persons recorded in 2019. While 961 of them went missing in 2019, 128 couldn’t be accounted for in January 2020.
Some of the assylum seekers reportedly returned to Nigeria or moved to Italy, but “at least 961 disappeared without a trace”. It’s speculated that the missing individuals might have become victims of “human trafficking.”
Reacting to the investigative group’s findings, Shamir Ceuleers of the Dutch Centre Against Human and Youngster Trafficking says the results are usually not surprising because they follow a pattern that has been occurring for years.
