Background
Back to: Unaccompanied foreign minors
As of June 30, 2019, there were 7,272 unaccompanied foreign minors (UFM) in Italy, with a 44.7% reduction in comparison to the same period of 2018 and a 59.3% reduction if compared to 2017.
Unaccompanied foreign minors are mainly male (93.2%).
63.6% of UFMs are aged 17, 22.7% are aged 16, 7.1% are aged 15 and 6.6% are younger than 15.
The percentage of 17-year old minors is increasing in comparison to the same period of past years, while the percentage of minors between 7 and 16 years of age is decreasing.
The total number of unaccompanied foreign minors in Italy who turned out to be untraceable as of 30 June, 2019 is 4,736. Among them, the most numerous are national citizens of Tunisia (13.8%), Eritrea (11.9%), Afghanistan (11.9%), and Somalia (8.1%). Starting from 2017, when the information system on minors called SIM was established, details about annual disappearances of UFM are also available. In the first semester of 2019 they were 893: 15.6% of them are Tunisians, 15.2% Afghans and 11.3% Pakistanis.
Sicily remains the region where the greatest share of UFMs is received (2,066 minors or 28.4% of the total number), followed by Lombardy (816 minors or 11.2%), Emilia Romagna (634 minors or 8.7%), Friuli-Venezia Giulia (573 minors or 7.9%), and Lazio (501 minors or 6.9%)
Minors arriving from Bangladesh and from African countries (Gambia, Guinea, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal, Somalia, and Tunisia) are mostly concentrated in Sicily, those arriving from Albania in Tuscany, and minors coming from Pakistan in Friuli Venezia Giulia, a region which also hosts a significant percentage of minors arriving from Afghanistan and Kosovo.