For the fifth day in a row, the search for a little Ukrainian girl continues in the German region of Saxony. 9-year-old Valeria moved to Germany with her mother and sister, fleeing the war. They settled in the city of Döbeln. The girl disappeared on the way to school.
On Monday, the girl left the house to go to school. Valeriya did not get on the school bus. The school did not pay attention to the girl’s absence. Valeria’s mother sounded the alarm when she did not return home after school. She called the school and learned that the girl had not attended the school that day. After that, the mother contacted the police.
300 policemen and a helicopter were involved in the search for the girl in a town with a population of 24,000. Valeria was searched around the city, in abandoned buildings and nearby forests, but the law enforcement officers still have not been able to find the schoolgirl.
The Regional Office for Schools and Education stated that the school violated the procedure for reporting missing children. after Valeriya did not show up for classes, the teacher had to call her parents and find out the reason for her absence. According to the established mechanism of actions in such cases, if it was not possible to contact the parents, the school should have informed the police. Due to the fact that the teacher did not pay attention to the absence of the girl, Valeria’s disappearance became known only in the afternoon. Thus, the first precious hours of searching were lost.
“Most schools are notified as soon as possible if a child is absent without a good reason. In this particular case, this was not the case, and we need to clarify why,” he says. Clemens Arndt from the local administration of education.
The school principal refused to comment on the situation for the media. The school noted that they did not report the disappearance because the girl was often late.
After several days of unsuccessful searches, the case became international. Now Valeria is wanted not only in Germany, but also in Ukraine, Poland and the Czech Republic.
