OMM Redaksiyası
More than 20,000 of the 31,100 children who reached Europe along mixed migration routes in 2025 arrived without a parent or guardian, according to a joint report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), UNHCR and UNICEF.
Overall child arrivals by sea and land fell by 25% compared with 2024. But the proportion recorded as unaccompanied rose to 67%, from 51% a year earlier, the report said.
Italy and Spain recorded the highest shares of unaccompanied children, at 86% of child arrivals in each country.
IOM Director General Amy Pope warned that the lack of safe routes leaves children exposed to smugglers, violence and exploitation.
“Children are making difficult and dangerous journeys without a parent or guardian by their side,” Pope said, calling for stronger cross-border cooperation to protect them.
“No child should have to face these risks alone,” she said. “Our shared responsibility is to work across borders to protect them, uphold their rights, and provide the care and support they need.”
Nearly half of more than 4,600 adolescents and young adults interviewed along Mediterranean, West African Atlantic and Western Balkan routes reported physical violence when asked about their experiences.
On the Central Mediterranean route, 28% said they had been held against their will, while 17% reported being forced to work, according to the report.
The number of children undergoing refugee resettlement procedures to Europe fell to 3,400 in 2025, from 8,900 in 2024.
Separately, 199 children were relocated between European states under the Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism, a 67% decrease. None of them was unaccompanied, the report said.
IOM urged EU member states to “put the best interests of the child at the centre of every decision, to guarantee timely access to services, and never to detain children for immigration purposes.”
“Unaccompanied and separated children should have immediate access to legal representation,” the agency said.
