The Swedish government has released new figures showing that 84 per cent of migrants tested who claimed to be children were adults.
Between mid-March and late October, the Swedish government had The National Board of Forensic Medicine (Rättsmedicinalverket) carry out a total of 7,858 age assessments to find out if migrants were being truthful about their age.
The tests revealed that 6,628 were likely 18 or older (84%), with a further 112 “possibly” 18 or older, the BBC reports.
However, not ever migrant under suspicion could be examined, due their being missing their wisdom teeth or incapable of undergoing other tests, like MRI scans of knee joints.
The tests to determine the age of migrants who declared themselves to be under 18 began earlier this year in mid-March, and early results from July showed the number of adults to be 86 per cent.
In 2015 and 2016, around 80,000 migrants claiming to be underage entered Sweden. Those who come without parents or guardians are often placed in special homes.
In one home for underage asylum seekers last year, a social worker named Alexandra Mezher was killed by a Somalian who was later revealed to be an adult. The case was one of the main factors for the introduction of the tests to determine the actual age of migrants claiming to be under 18.
Germany, which has also taken in many “underage” asylum seekers since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015, has also had issues with adults posing as children.
One of the most notorious cases involved Afghan asylum seeker Hussein Khavari, who allegedly raped and killed German student Maria Ladenburger last year. Recent tests have shown that despite his claims to be 17, he is most likely aged between 22 and 30.
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