Timothy Adeoye, eight others declared missing in London

A worrying number of children have disappeared from a north London borough, reports say.
In the last few weeks, at least nine children between 13 and 17 have gone missing from the Enfield area.
Police say that while some of the kids could be missing together, they are conducting independent investigations for each child reported missing.
The missing teenagers are predominantly black boys, and residents in the area are calling the sheer scale of the disappearances extremely ‘scary.’
Dami Adeoye, 27, whose cousin Timothy Adeoye, 14, has been missing from Enfield for two weeks, says: “Our family have been encouraged by the overwhelming support shown by everyone who have circulated Timothy’s picture.
“No information is insignificant; so we’d like to appeal to anyone who has anything to come forward.
“Timothy is a 14-year-old child who’s been away from us for over two weeks. Christmas, for most of us, is a time of joy and laughter. We want to be able to have that too, with Timothy home. Thank you all so much.”
Sadly, Timothy’s disappearance is not an isolated case. A spokesperson for Met Police said, “Enfield borough is not experiencing a disproportionate amount of missing teenagers.
“In these individual cases, officers deemed it appropriate to use Twitter to assist investigations.
“Police in Enfield issue brief appeals via Twitter in missing person cases where such publicity may be helpful.”
A spokesperson added: “We understand how upsetting it is that these young children are missing and our Missing Persons Unit is conducting a separate and full investigation into each child, while also addressing the possibility that they could be missing together.
“We are using social media as an asset to try to get their faces known and to get information on their whereabouts to help with our investigations.
“If anyone has info, please call our MPU and help us to locate them and reunite them with family and friends.”
The disappearances come after gang members Mahad Yusuf, 20, and Fesal Mahamud 19, were jailed for using a young woman, who had been reported missing, to traffic drugs.