Lone child asylum seekers are at risk of being sent to Rwanda because the UK Home Office has wrongly classified some as adults, the Guardian reported.

The Refugee Council, which works with these children, has warned of the risk after more than a dozen of the children it works with were wrongly issued with notices of intent for Rwanda.

The Home Office has said it will not send lone children to the east African country. However, if officials wrongly classify a child as an adult, they can be sent.

According to Refugee Council data, six age-disputed people it has been working with have been detained in adult immigration detention centers. 

If a child is disputing their age and the Home Office deems they are an adult they can be sent to Rwanda before the outcome of a social worker age assessment is known.

In freedom of information data obtained last year from 70 local authority social services departments, two-thirds of children – 867 of 1,386 – deemed to be adults by the Home Office were later confirmed to be children.