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Photo: Yana Karbovskaya/Publicpost Text: Yana Karbovskaya

The Lisa Alert search team is holding an exhibition "Not Childish", which presents installations with nine of the most notorious stories about missing children. Some of them were found, some were not. A PublicPost correspondent spoke with volunteers of the movement and found out how and who they are looking for and how the state helps them with this.

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in 2011, about 64.5 thousand people were listed as missing, of which 21 thousand were children and teenagers. The Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation reports that in 90% of cases children are found. Even if this is so, about 2 thousand minors remain unfound. Usually, parents of missing children turn to the police first, in the hope that all the forces of law enforcement will be immediately deployed to search for their child. Often these expectations are not met. This happened in 2010, when five-year-old Lisa Fomkina and her aunt disappeared in the forest. The police and the Ministry of Emergency Situations hesitated, active searches began only when information about the incident leaked onto the Internet and hundreds of volunteers got involved in the case. Lisa was found on the 10th day, the day before she died of hypothermia. This story marked the beginning of a volunteer movement to search for children, which was named “Lisa Alert”, in honor of the deceased girl.

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Now parents call “Liza” and then the police. Or they call the police, and the police call “Lisa.” Volunteers have long been perceived as a rescue service. According to volunteer Alina Pavlyukova, they are contacted 4-6 times a day. These are all kinds of calls. In recent cases, Alina remembered a disabled person whose stroller broke in the rain. A woman passing by gave him the number of Lisa Alert and said that they would definitely help. They helped the disabled person. A fisherman called who was stuck in the middle of a pond in bad weather. The Ministry of Emergency Situations reported that everything was fine with the victim, and at that time the fisherman himself shouted into the phone to the volunteer that he could no longer hold on.

The history of the relationship between the police and the volunteer movement is complex. Activist Irina Vorobyova says that now the situation is much better than before, and recently the police have begun to willingly work with Lisa Alert. On the one hand, the police need people. On the other hand, cooperation almost always involves publicizing the story. For the department that received the missing person report, this means that the case will have to be brought to an end in any case - after all, everyone already knows about it. Now, Irina says, the police are used to it: “They began to react quickly to the disappearance of small children, but with adults and the elderly it is more difficult. If you need to look for a child in the forest, the police, as a rule, immediately call the Ministry of Emergency Situations, although according to the law the Ministry of Emergency Situations does not deal with such matters. Searches children are not within their competence, and the disappearance of a child is not an emergency at all. But even together with the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the police are not able to conduct a full-fledged search, because there are too few people for this.” Irina assures that even if the entire duty unit goes out to search, they will not be enough. In addition to this, the Ministry of Emergency Situations does not know how to work, argues with volunteers, and this slows down the search. “They always claim that they have a method, but they don’t have it. We had to reinvent the wheel,” says Irina Vorobyova.

Volunteers honestly admit that the special services do not know how to search, do not want to learn, and are offended if mistakes are pointed out to them. But they still coordinate with the police immediately. Alina Pavlyukova is confident that the security agencies can do a lot because they have enough leverage: “If it becomes clear that crime is involved in the case, then the main work falls on their shoulders, and we consult with the police - what to do and what not to do.” do". As soon as a report is received about a missing child, volunteers find out what the child looks like, what he left in, and ask for a photograph. Then they call the police, receive information about what has already been done and what is already known, and develop a search plan. “Sometimes the police may ask you to temporarily not disclose details of the story or not to say anything about the child at all. This is important if it is clear that the case is criminal,” explains Irina. In other cases, volunteers disseminate information based on the situation. Targets for “runners” cannot be posted where they fled. The child will see them and will move to another place, to where he thinks they are not looking for him.

Alina Pavlyukova participated in the search for Liza Fomkina, she is one of the “oldest” volunteers in "Lise Alert"

When they were looking for five-year-old Dasha Sotnikova, they had to involve students who at that time were taking part in a sports marathon not far from the search site, they brought a fire truck and a bunch of bulky equipment. Volunteers then explained to the police that as many people as possible were needed, because even “Liza” activists were not enough to cover the forest in which the little girl was lost. Dasha was carried out of the forest by a huge crowd of people and passed from hand to hand. She went into the forest to look for her drawing, crossed the stream and fell asleep. Soon she was found. Already in the arms of the rescuers, Dasha was chatting about tea and jam, not having time to understand what had happened to her.

According to volunteers, searching for six-year-old Sasha Stepanov was very difficult. The hyperactive child ran and hid from them throughout the forest for four days. In such cases, you need a lot of people to comb the entire forest and look under every snag: the child is small and can climb anywhere. The police do not have the resources for such searches, so it is not surprising that the forces of the Ministry of Emergency Situations are involved in large-scale searches.

In other countries, the army, national guard, internal troops or other security forces are also involved in large-scale search operations. The problem is not that there are not enough people. According to the chairman of the Coordination Council of the Police Trade Union, Mikhail Pashkin, “we have this direction, the search for missing people, that is not being developed now, the riot police are being developed, which kills the people, district police officers are taught to go around apartments, and no one needs to learn how to search for people en masse. When the daughter of a top... manager of Lukoil, the area was combed by internal troops. So in our state, everything, unfortunately, depends on who your dad is.” And if there is no hope for dad, all hope is for volunteers. Because no one seems to rely on the state anymore.