Shock figures show rise of child asylum seekers being cared for by English councils
THE number of child asylum seekers being cared for by councils in England has risen by more than half since last year, figures released show.
By the end of March there were at least 4,156 unaccompanied children seeking asylum and in the care of councils, the broadcaster said - a rise from 2,569 a year earlier.
The three councils with the largest number of child asylum seekers were Kent, Croydon and Surrey, freedom of information requests to the BBC showed.
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The majority of the lone children were from Afghanistan, followed by Eritrea and Albania.
On Sunday the Government announced it had secured enough local authority places across the UK to resettle 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next four years.
Meanwhile, a new major report found nearly 50 million children around the world have been driven from their homes by conflict or migrated across borders.
More than half of these (28 million) were forcibly displaced by conflict and violence within and across borders, while a further 20 million children fled their homes for other reasons including to escape gang violence and extreme poverty, research by Unicef estimates.
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