Prefect Antonino Bella, extraordinary commissioner of Missing Persons, announced in a report published on Friday by the La Repubblica newspaper that 9,599 such cases were registered throughout the country in the first half of 2022.

The number of missing children in the semester amounted to 6,312, 70 percent of them foreigners, but only 30 percent of foreign minors were found, the source said.

Elisa Pozza, spokeswoman for the Penelope Italian Association of Missing Persons, told the publication that “in most cases there is illegal work, pedophilia, child pornography, prostitution and even organ trafficking behind this phenomenon.”

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