Only five unaccompanied migrant children brought to UK from Greece and Italy: aid agencies

By Umberto Bacchi LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Only five child migrants who reached Italy and Greece without their parents were transferred to Britain in 2016, aid agencies said on Thursday, warning that many others risked falling prey to traffickers and smugglers. More than 20,000 unaccompanied children who fled poverty and war zones arrived in Italy by sea this year, while at least 2,250 reached Greece, according to the U.N. children's agency UNICEF. "If children do not have safe and legal routes to the UK they will continue to make perilous journeys and continue to fall into the hands of smugglers and traffickers," UNICEF UK's deputy executive director, Lily Caprani, said in a statement.

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