Authorities are investigating the apparent suicide of an 11-year-old Afghan boy at a refugee camp in Austria.

The child had reportedly been struggling to help care for his six siblings at the camp in Baden, south of Vienna, where they had lived since last year.

He died a day after being taken to hospital in the capital, police said. They did not reveal how he had taken his life.

Austrian ombudsman Guenther Kraeuter announced an inquiry into the boy's death following claims, reported by public broadcaster Oe1, that authorities had been aware of the family's difficulties.

Austrian media reported that the boy had been left in charge of his siblings by his 23-year-old brother.

Authorities said they noticed “nothing unusual”. The boy's death appeared to be the latest in a wave of suicides among young refugees in Europe.

The UN's children agency Unicef has denounced “the lack of protective measures for migrant children in Europe”, accusing EU member states of doing “much too little”.

Human Rights Watch warned in July that a deal struck by the EU to slow refugee boat crossings to Greece was driving levels of suicide and self-harm upwards.

Asylum seekers detained on islands in the Aegean Sea described how they saw people setting themselves on fire, hanging themselves and cutting their wrists in desperation at their squalid living, according to a report by the organisation.

Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Show all 13 1 /13 Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Volunteers walk a group of refugee children towards their school on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children pose at a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Syrian Kurd mother combs Roza's hair, as she prepares to go to a volunteer-run school in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children attend an English language class at the volunteer run school on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children carry vegetables in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A newly arrived Syrian refugee, 13, holds her sister, 2, in a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Refugee children pretend they go to school as they play in a refugee camp in the island AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Greek girl walks past a graffiti on her way to a school on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Malian refugee child poses from behind a fence in a makeshift camp AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Syrian Kurd mother combs Roza's hair, as she prepares to go to a volunteer-run school in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A Syrian family from Aleppo newly arrived to Greece sits in a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A child carries a broken blackgammon game in a makeshift camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees Inside the classroom with Chios's child refugees A child holds onto her mother, Djeneba from Mali, before attending school in a refugee camp on the island of Chios AFP/Getty

Dozens of asylum seekers, including children, reported rising anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental illnesses as they were forced to wait months on end in “horrific conditions” to see if they would be granted passage to the Greek mainland or deported to Turkey.

There have been reports that Afghan refugees are sometimes treated as “second class” in comparison to Syrians by Western governments, with the asylum process for Afghans reportedly taking much longer due to a belief that many Afghans are not forced to leave their homes but rather are economic migrants.

Since 1979, Afghanistan has ranked between four and five out of five on the political terror scale, a measurement developed by political scientist Mark Gibney. Level five is the highest and is defined as a condition where: “Terror has expanded to the whole population.”

In 2015, there were around 2.7 million Afghan refugees – the world’s second-largest group after Syrians.

Suicide rates among Afghan teens in Sweden are reported to have soared following the implementation of tougher suicide rules.

During a two week period in January and February this year, seven unaccompanied minors were reported to have attempted suicide in different housing centres across the Scandinavian country – with three of them dying.

Austria has received almost 150,000 asylum claims since 2015, making the wealthy nation of 8.75 million one of the highest recipients per capita in Europe's migration crisis.