Can’t Get Missing Children Out My Mind

[Whitewinelover19]

Name changed for this thread.Apologies if this has been done many times before. I was flicking through the tv channels recently and saw a programme about missing children. There’s a long list of children and young people who’ve disappeared over the years but I’ve found it really difficult to put it out of my mind.
I then suddenly started thinking about Ben Needham and Katrice Lee. Both of them from a very long time ago but I found these two cases really sad in particular.Obviously Maddie McCann everyone knows about as it’s still quite recent.
I think it’s because they were British children who went missing abroad. And toddlers. Ben wasn’t even two when he disappeared in Kos, at his grandparents place. His gran took her eye off him for a few moments and then he was gone. This was pretty remote from what I gather, like farmland.
Katrice Lee went missing from an Army base in Germany. She was shopping with her mum and aunt, and disappeared in a busy store. It was her second birthday. This was way back in 1981. This came into the news again very recently, following a lead.
What struck me was that although they were different types of surroundings, they were very normal circumstances. How can children just disappear, with no evidence? I just find this very hard to understand. I found reading up on these cases very sad.
It’s almost like I’m grieving for children that I’ve never known. They wouldn’t even be children now, Ben Needham would be 30 this year and Katrice would be 40 this year. But I’m still thinking of them as toddlers.
I just can’t help wonder what happened to them? Are they alive? If they were abducted, they may not even know and live their lives obliviously.
Seeing their pictures almost make me feel emotional .
I think being a parent has made me much more sensitive. I just couldn’t imagine going out in a normal day and coming home without a child. It must be so awful for the families.
Does anyone else think of similar things and struggle to forget them?

Kevin Hicks went out at half past eight , that isn’t late at night.

It is terribly, terribly sad. There's no relief! How the poor parents cope not knowing what has happened to their child, I don't know.

There was a high profile in America years ago when a 14 year old girl kidnapped. Miraculous she was found less than a year later but what and her family went through was dreadful. What's more they came in for unfounded criticism! That's beyond understanding.

There is a film about it, if you can find. I've seen it on TV a couple of times, also read the book:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0380787/

The not knowing must be the worst part. I guess people hope that as time goes on the conscious of of those involved would get the better of them. I suppose particularly in the historical cases of missing children ,those involved may not even be alive anymore to confess.

Data obtained through a parliamentary question by the MP Ann Coffey shows an increase of 1,000 children going missing from care homes since 2015, after being moved to new areas often miles from their homes, known as an “out of area placement”.

Numbers have more than doubled from 990 in 2015, to 1,990 in 2018. This compares with a 31% increase for children who go missing from homes within their own borough.

Coffey said: “It shames us all that thousands of vulnerable children continue to be farmed out to live miles and miles away from home despite a government promise to clampdown on numbers.

“Isolated and alone without family, friends or local social workers to help protect them, they become sitting ducks for those who wish to prey on them. They are targeted by paedophiles and drugs gangs and can become trapped in a brutal world.”

boopsy - I feel the same ref Ben Needham. It’s assumed he’s dead. But no body has been found despite the grounds been searched. Even if the builder thinks he may have accidentally killed him, where’s the body??.. Also for years his family returned to Kos to look for Ben. I think in the mid 90s, a family saw a boy that could have been Ben Needham, with a family. They even took a picture, which is on the internet. Was it him? Who was that boy? I don’t think it was ever confirmed.

I agree with the OP, I think about these kids/young adults and adults who have literally vanished often. I watched the programme about Lee Boxall last month and as with all of them it was heart breaking for his parents. I often think of Andrew Gosden, and a famous American one Johnny Gosch.

Ben Needhams family have accepted that he has died. I am sure that the information the police gave them left them in no doubt of the tragic outcome and I think people should respect that they know more than we will ever know about the situation.

That’s true boopsy.