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More than half of the children disembarked from the Ocean Viking migrant rescue boat last week escaped a migrant reception center, French authorities said.
Some 26 of the 44 unaccompanied teenagers fled the facilities provided for them, the council of the Var region in southern France said in a statement on Friday.
Department official Jean-Louis Masson told French media that three people left the center the day after arriving on November 11, and 23 others left in the following days.
Meanwhile, French Interior Minister Gerard Damanin said this week that 44 of a total of 234 migrants faced deportation “as health permits” — and many more could be leave the country.
Mr Dalmanin’s reluctance to allow the sea rescue ship to dock in Toulon while its fate is in dispute threatens EU efforts to share asylum seekers.
The French welcome to the Ocean Viking has angered far-right opponents of the French government.
Immigrant advocates expressed relief but regrettably it took weeks to find a port for the ship as Italy refused to let the ship dock.
On Friday, they vowed to return the ship to the Mediterranean to save others in distress.
Ocean Viking disembarked passengers in the port of Toulon – passengers from Eritrea, Egypt, Syria, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other countries, including 44 unaccompanied minors and children as young as 3 years old.
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