Unicef calls for protection from trafficking for children who were orphaned in the Asian disaster. So far the UN confirmed two cases when smugglers attempted to steal Indonesian kids in the Aceh province that suffered severe damage from tsunami.

Indonesian police patrols refugee camps to shield the orphaned kids from potential kidnapping in order to sell the young disaster victims into forced labor or sexual slavery in the affluent nations including Malaysia or Singapore. Unicef spokesman John Budd claims there is a message going around Indonesia that offers three hundred children from Aceh for illegal attention.

Indonesia’s government forbade kids under 16 to leave the country, and the Malaysian administration warned its citizens to stick to the official channels in child adoption but declined the reports that the children were smuggled into the country.

"I don’t think you could have a more vulnerable child on earth than a child in this situation," Mr Budd said. "A young child who has gone through what they have witnessed will be barely surviving in terms of psychological health."

Unicef believes that the children’s sufferings may not be over as the countries that were devastated by the earthquake may be subject to starvation or epidemics or diseases.

Members of trafficking gangs may present themselves as friends or family of the chidren and collect them from institutions where they undergo treatment. An Indian employee of the Save the Children fund reported seeing instances when kids were picked up at the hospital by strangers.

The police are still searching for the 12-year-old Swedish boy Christian who is missing after being separated from his family when he was taken to hospital.