One in eight lone children seeking asylum in Britain comes from Albania, it emerged last night – despite the country not being at war.
A total of 3,175 unaccompanied child migrants lodged claims for sanctuary in the UK last year – nearly nine a day.
But 405 applications, or 13 per cent, were made by youngsters from the former Communist nation in the Balkans.
One in eight lone children seeking asylum in Britain comes from Albania, it emerged last night – despite the country not being at war
Ministers have come under fire for not doing more to take thousands of minors crossing Europe without their families.
However critics said the latest figures from Eurostat, the EU's official statistics agency, sparked concerns that the asylum system is being abused.
David Davies, Tory candidate for Monmouth, said: 'Albania is not a country at war and it is not immediately clear why people from there need asylum. This risks undermining the whole system by raising fears among the public that it is being exploited.'
Last month, Eurostat figures revealed that 32,000 asylum claims were made in EU countries by Albanians last year, including 1,700 in the UK. Reasons that people might flee Albania include possible persecution because of their ethnicity, sexuality or religion.
But unlike those fleeing war-torn Syria and Iraq, many quit the country as economic migrants, in part because of high youth unemployment. Judith Dennis, policy manager at the Refugee Council charity, said: 'Even seemingly peaceful countries like Albania can be very dangerous places for different groups of people, such as lesbian or gay people, or trafficking victims.
'You don't have to flee war to be legally entitled to international protection. Decisions on asylum claims can be life or death so it's important the Home Office gets its decisions right and judges each individual claim on its own merit.'
More than 63,000 lone children applied for asylum in EU countries last year. It was a fall of a third from 96,465 in 2015, when the international migration crisis was at its peak. But the tally was still around five times the annual average of 12,000 between 2008 and 2013.
Germany received the most claims (35,935) followed by Italy (6,020) and Austria (3,900), while Britain had the fourth highest number. However last year's figures are slightly lower than in 2015, when the UK received 3,253 asylum applications from lone children.
In total, the UK granted asylum or other forms of protection to more than 8,000 children in 2016.
Earlier this year the Government faced a furious backlash after announcing that only 350 unaccompanied minors would arrive from Europe through the so-called Dubs scheme – well below the 3,000 campaigners had called for.
Then last month ministers said they would accept an extra 130 after they found places had been under-counted because of an 'administrative error'. It meant the total number of children taken in through the scheme, named after Labour peer Lord Dubs, would rise to 480.
However Freedom of Information requests revealed that local authorities had offered to accept some 1,572 lone child refugees, according to online magazine Vice.
This is despite warnings about significant cost to the taxpayer of schooling, housing and foster care.
Earlier this week it emerged in a Court of Appeal hearing that hundreds of gay asylum seekers, victims of trafficking and survivors of domestic violence may have been wrongly deported to Albania after courts and the Home Office relied on incorrect guidance.
SOURCE: Daily Mail
