An Observer investigation unmasked that gangs kidnapped dozens of asylum-seeking youngsters from a Home Office-run hostel in Brighton, in a pattern that appears to be repeated across the south coast.

A whistleblower for Home Office contractor Mitie, as well as child protection sources, recalls youngsters being grabbed from the street outside the hotel and rushed into waiting vehicles.

“Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing, and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers,” the source reported.

It has also been revealed that police repeatedly informed the Home Office that the hotel's vulnerable tenants - asylum-seeking children who had recently arrived in the UK without parents or carers - would be targeted by criminal networks.

In the last 18 months, over 600 unaccompanied minors have traveled through the Sussex motel, with 136 reported missing. More than half of these, 79, are still missing.

'Truly appalling and scandalous'

On her account, Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, defined the revelation as “truly appalling and scandalous," urging the government to reveal how many children had disappeared and what was being done to find them.

She stressed, “Suella Braverman [the home secretary] has failed to act on the repeated warnings she has been given about totally inadequate safeguards for children in their care."

“It is a total dereliction of duty for the Home Office to so badly fail to protect child safety or crack down on the dangerous gangs putting them in terrible risk. Ministers must urgently put new protection arrangements in place,” she added.

The Mitie whistleblower reportedly described seeing children being trafficked from a similar hotel maintained by the Home Office in Hythe, Kent, where 10% of the children disappeared each week.

According to a child protection source, several of the missing children from the Brighton hotel may have been trafficked as far afield as Manchester and Scotland. The Metropolitan Police in London is looking into one case.

Data released in October revealed that 222 unaccompanied asylum-seeking youngsters had gone missing from Home Office-run motels. Ministers stated that they had no idea where they were.

When questioned, Brighton and Hove City Council, which normally cares for child asylum seekers who arrive in the UK without parents or guardians, addressed questions about criminals targeting minors to the police. Inquiries about criminals targeting minors should be directed to the Home Office, according to Sussex police.

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