602 people missing in Belgium 04/10/2007 00:00

4 October 2007

BRUSSELS – There are currently 602 people missing in Belgium.

For ten years the Missing Persons unit has been working with local police to solve cases of disappearances. Last year the detectives were confronted with 1,177 worrying disappearances. 1,088 missing people were tracked down, 125 had died. 89 of these cases are still being worked on. 602 cases from the past ten years remain unsolved.

Of course the Missing Persons unit wants to solve these cases as quickly as possible, says Commissioner Guido Van Rillaer. "But there are also cases in which we have so little to go on. These cases sleep until we find something to bring us further. We try to review them every year. It is important to keep the family of the missing person updated. Then they know we are still working on it."

As long as the police have not found the missing person, the case remains open. "Experience teaches us that most of these missing people have died. But that's not true in all cases. People are quick to come to the police when something goes wrong, but if the missing person turns up, they often forget to inform us."

Van Rillaer says that they never rule out the possibility that a person may have gone missing deliberately. "We have had the case of a family that was worried about a woman whom we found 10 years later in France. She just started a new life from one day to the next."

"Most disappearances are solved by common sense," says Alain Remue, head of the Missing Persons unit. "Sometimes we are looking too far afield. Like with the two people who were missing for more than 20 years. There were rumours they were in the Bahamas. We found them in the lock at Nieuwpoort. Dead in their car. If we were to search all the waterways in the country, there would be a lot fewer cold cases."

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Belgian news