Police in Saxony have been searching for a nine-year-old Ukrainian-born girl who has been missing in the town of Dobeln for more than four days. The last time she left home early in the morning, she went to school, but Valeria never showed up for classes, Bild reports.
The girl was reported missing by her parents when she did not return from school four days ago. On the same day, police immediately launched a search operation.
As the school did not raise the alarm, the mother realised her daughter had disappeared only in the afternoon. Police spokesman Andrzej Rydzik told Bild:
‘We found out the girl was missing around 6.30 p.m. Since then we have been doing everything we can to find her alive and unharmed. We are taking this case very seriously.”
According to CCTV in Dobeln, Germany, Valeria did not use the regular bus to go to school, choosing some alternative route.
The search for the minor has already involved film experts, divers, rescuers and a helicopter, today more than 300 law enforcers are also involved in the operation. However, the police admit that for such a long period of time, the Ukrainian could have already been taken out of the country.
Friends shared the appeal of the mother on social networks. It says:
“I miss my 9-year-old daughter. Today she did not go to school and disappeared without a trace. I am grateful for any help.”
Valeria, from Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine, came to Germany with her family in 2022.
Refugees are going missing
This is not the first case of disappearance of Ukrainian refugees in Germany. In March, the body of a young woman was found by a passer-by near a river in the town of Hockenheim, Baden-Württemberg in south-west Germany.
Police identified the deceased as a Ukrainian woman who, along with her 51-year-old mother Marina Stetsenko and newborn daughter Mia, had disappeared shortly before the murder. Later, police said after examining the body that the young woman had been brutally murdered.
Ukrainian refugees in an attempt to hide from war and mobilisation are fleeing to EU countries in the hope of establishing their usual life. However, in Europe they often encounter new problems that significantly prevent them from settling into their usual way of living.
