KUALA LUMPUR – A total of 255 children and teenagers are still reported missing, according to police’s missing children database, with some cold cases dating back to 2010.
This week, as the kidnapping of 6-year-old Albertine Leo Jia Hui, and her subsequent rescue three days later, gripped news headlines, a count of cases on the database by year also showed that 89 minors had gone missing this year alone, to date.
The 255 cases as of press time include 55 who have been missing since 2023, 33 since 2022, 25 since 2021 and 11 since 2020. The remainder involve individuals who have disappeared in the years between 2019 and 2010, the year the database starts.
Selangor has the highest number of reported missing children, with 85 cases. Sabah follows with 40 reported cases, while Kuala Lumpur and Negri Sembilan each have 20 reported cases of missing minors.
However, it must be noted that there is a lag from the time a missing minor is found and the removal of the person’s name from the database. For example, 17-year-old Nurul Aisha Farhana who went missing in Batang Kali on Tuesday and was found in Pahang on Thursday, has yet to be removed from the database at press time.
Another missing teen – Nurul Szaza Fadzli, 16 – who was reported missing on June 9 and later surrendered herself at a police station on June 11 – also has not been removed from the database.
One of the oldest cases in the database, in 2010, is that of Nisha Chandramohan, who disappeared the same year, and who would have been 16 this year. It was reported that she suffers from epilepsy and needs daily medication to manage her seizures.
Another case dating back more than a decade is Satishkumar Tamilvanan, who was 5-years-old when he disappeared in 2012 from a food court in Bukit Mertajam, Penang, while accompanying his father and grandfather to work.
The list also features foreign minors who disappeared in Malaysia, like 16-year-old Vietnamese Nguyen Nhut Huy, who has been missing since April 14 this year.
There are also two Bangladeshi girls, 12-year-old Ishraq Bibi and 9-year-old Shahena, who disappeared on May 22, this year.
The two children of Thu Zar Maung, a Myanmar refugee activist who was abducted with her family from their home in Ampang Jaya in July of last year, are also listed. The children are a girl, Phoo Phyu Zing, aged 16, and boy, Thu Kha Maung, aged 17.
Also listed is 13-year-old Nathan Chesters, who has been missing since April 2022. He disappeared while participating in a training dive with his father near Tokong Sanggol, a small island off the southeastern town of Mersing, Terengganu.
Police’s online database of missing minors carries the National Urgent Response (NUR) Alerts issued on children who are reported missing.
The NUR Alert was created by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry following the abduction and murder of 8-year-old Nurin Jazlin Jazimin in 2007.
The system is a national initiative modelled after the United States’ Amber Alert to disseminate information about missing children. – July 26, 2024
