Tourist sees "kidnapped girls"

4 April 2007

BRUSSELS – The Ostend police are investigating the possible abduction of two girls on Tuesday after a tourist claims she saw two girls tied up in a grey van.

At about 5 pm the police received a report of a possible kidnapping of two girls in the Ooststraat in Ostend. A woman from Luxembourg, who was sitting in a tea room at the corner of the Ooststraat and the Kapellestraat, says she saw two girls tied up in the back seat of a gray DAF delivery van.

The police immediately raised the alarm. All roads in and around Ostend were monitored. The women went to the police station for questioning.

“In situations like this it is better to be safe than sorry and so we followed up along two routes. The woman was questioned to get the exact details. And an official investigation was launched and the public prosecution department was notified,” said police commissioner Rudy Fort.

A similar call was made to police in Knokke last Saturday. A woman reported that two children had been kidnapped and were seen in a van in the Zeebrugge region. But it turned out to be a false alarm. The police are looking into both reports, but the new report turns out to be unrelated to the first.

No children had been reported missing in Belgium as of last night. Nor has any trace of the grey DAF van been found. The woman from Luxembourg is reportedly a reliable individual with children of her own. The police hope to gain more certainty in the course of today.

Subject: Belgian news

Tourist sees “kidnapped girls”