Somali children in exodus to Europe

Thousands of children are being smuggled into Europe from war-ravaged Somalia every year, with Britain the most popular destination, according to a UN report released yesterday.

"Child smuggling from Somali territories is now so widespread that it has become a critical informal institution," the UN information agency report says.

Smugglers in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, told the UN that 250 children were smuggled out of the city each month until the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Increased security at airports and borders reduced this figure to about 60; but it is now said to be rising again as smugglers find more ingenious routes. Prices have doubled and parents are paying about £5,000 to smuggle a child, most of whom are teenagers.

The parents' resolve is understandable: riven by feuding clan militias for a decade, Somalia is steeped in violence, and has almost no education or basic healthcare. The UN children's agency, Unicef, ranks Somalia as the worst place in the world to be a child.

However, the report says that many of the children drift into crime or prostitution after being simply abandoned at European airports.

The report's author, Lucy Hannon, said yesterday: "It clearly takes more than strongarm policies on asylum seekers to stop people coming."

"If you don't want a failed state arriving on your doorstep, you have to start putting money into Somalia. What are responsible parents supposed to do when there are no secondary schools left in Somalia?"

Many smugglers named Britain as their most popular destination, thanks to its welfare state, Somali community of about 60,000, and because of the relative ease of entry.

Several smugglers said British passports could be bought from corrupt immigration officials, or rented from ethnic Somali citizens.

Ethiopia is one of the conduits for the smugglers, and a British foreign office official quoted in the report said the British embassy in Addis Ababa had made DNA testing compulsory for Somali asylum seekers, to try to stop unrelated children being "grafted on" to families offered asylum.

"You could see there was good reason for the lying, there was desperation, and visa officers had some compassion," the official says."But there were some Somali groups abusing the system, taking money and becoming organised."

Former British immigration officials were hired by the groups to find loopholes in the system, the British official claimed, adding that they could "run rings around lawyers and make a lot of money."

Most smugglers, however, are Somalis with UK passports who pass the children off as their dependents, the report said. One smuggled girl said: "I am not Safiya from Somalia any more; I am 12-year-old Fatuma, flying abroad with her uncle - that is what my mother told me this morning before I was taken to the airport."