|
This got a lot of attention on the BBC World
Service.
Amy
-----Original Message-----
From: African-Americans in
Higher Education
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of John
Lindsay
Sent: Tuesday, May 17, 2005 2:50 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:
[AFAMHED] 300 Black Boys are Missing in Britain
300 black boys are missing
in Britain
DISCOVERY MADE AFTER CHILD'S BODY IS FOUND IN
RIVER
By Alan Cowell
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS
SERVICE
LONDON - Even by the standards of a river that has known
more than its share
of death in gruesome and macabre fashions, the
discovery was startling.
In September 2001, in the River Thames near the
soaring columns of Tower
Bridge, the police discovered the torso of a
dark-skinned child they called
Adam. The suggestion from subsequent
investigations was that he had died in
some kind of ritualistic murder
linked to West African witchcraft.
Now, more than three years later, the
discovery has brought another chilling
fact to light: In the three months
before the body was found, 300 other
black boys from 4 to 7 years of age
were missing or unaccounted for.
"We were really looking at black children,
black male children, aged between
4 and 7, and we found 300 of those that
couldn't be accounted for,"
Detective Chief Inspector Will O'Reilly told
British radio on Friday. "In
the main these were African children."
What
happened to the boys remains a mystery. While the police said they had
no
evidence of murder, they also acknowledged that the absence of
immigration
records prevented the authorities from tracing the
missing
youngsters.
When the police discovered Adam's body in 2001, they
found it had been
skillfully butchered and drained of blood. Forensic tests
found a poisonous
bean in his stomach and traces of crushed bone and clay
pellets studded with
fragments of gold and quartz in his lower
intestine.
Other inquiries, led by O'Reilly, suggested the boy originally
came from a
rural area of southwestern Nigeria.
O'Reilly said the police
questioned people who were supposed to be taking
care of the missing
children and were often told that they had returned to
Africa. "We asked
through Interpol for police to make inquiries in the local
countries to
which they returned," he said. "In the majority of cases we got
no reply on
that."
Only two of the missing children were traced, he said.
It is not
unusual for African parents to send children to Britain and other
places to
be looked after by relatives and sent to school. But the people
who look
after them, called private carers, are not obliged to register with
the
British authorities.
Yinka Sunmonu, an author and journalist, said some of
the children are badly
exploited and abused. "They are being trafficked,
they are being emotionally
abused, there are incidences of domestic
slavery," she told the BBC. "There
is physical abuse, sexual
abuse."
Felicity Collier, head of the British Association for Adopting
and
Fostering, said: "We know there are thousands of children who are
missing.
We know there are children being passed between adults.
"We
would not accept this as a society if these were white children,"
she
added. "We have to have a law in this country that says private
foster
carers have to register."
--
No virus found in this outgoing
message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database:
266.11.10 - Release Date: 5/13/2005
Yahoo! Groups Links
|
