Recently discovered in the sewers beneath the Rome Ostiense train station were Afghan illegal and undocumented immigrants who have made the underground their home. Their total: 98 adults and 24 adolescents. The mother of one of the 24 children had been decapitated in Afghanistan while his father decided to remain in the country with his four other children.

In the Italian capital, there are over 1,000 vagrant children, 30 percent of whom are Afghans who seek a daily living sifting through the garbage, looking for bits of food that can still be eaten.

Much has already been heard about the odyssey of ‘ghost children’ and their stories have been published in Italian newspapers. In 2004, 32 Afghan children were discovered in Rome. In 2007, there were 264. Also in that year, Roman authorities found 1,152 unaccompanied and parentless minors living in the city. Most of them were Romanians, followed by Afghans, Moldavians, Egyptians, and Moroccans.

Some reports state that there have been 7,797 minors that have secretly crossed the border into Italy. Many have been located. Most remain at large. The biggest fear is that the children may have fallen prey to prostitution rings and syndicates involved in the trafficking of human organs.

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Via ABC News