Emergency services continued a large-scale search for a missing two-year-old near Bingen in Baden-Württemberg on Monday. As the police in Ravensburg announced, a police helicopter and sniffer dogs are being used to find the girl who disappeared from her parents’ house on Sunday afternoon and was presumably only wearing pajamas.
“We are reopening the whole thing and getting new police forces for today’s search,” said a police spokeswoman. Up to 80 officers are expected to comb the entire area around the parents’ house. The emergency services hope to find the missing woman safely despite all odds. “We hope for a happy outcome,” said police spokesman Christian Sugg on Monday.
However, the circumstances must be kept realistically in mind: the temperatures last night were below zero. “According to our knowledge, the girl is only dressed in pajamas. These are the general conditions we have that are not particularly conducive to such a search in the missing person case.”
The nearby Lauchert River further exacerbates the situation. The Lauchert is normally a calm river, but is currently in flood, reported Bingen Mayor Jochen Fetzer (independent). “That makes things even more dramatic. There is significantly more water in the river than usual.” The family home is located in close proximity to the river.
On Sunday, around 180 emergency services from the police, fire brigade, technical relief agency and German Red Cross searched in vain until the night for the missing toddler from Hitzkofen, a district of Bingen near the Swabian Alb. They also used drones with thermal imaging cameras and sniffer dogs. According to police, boats and divers were also involved.
According to initial findings, the wanted child left his parents’ house in Hitzkofen “presumably in an unobserved moment” on Sunday between 4 and 5 p.m., the officials said on Monday. The criminal police have taken over the case. Investigators are asking possible witnesses for information about the girl’s whereabouts. The two-year-old is about 60 centimeters tall and has short, blonde hair and blue eyes. The parents shared this data with the emergency services. The police spokeswoman said they would “pull out all the stops” to find the toddler.
Bingen is located in the southeast of Baden-Württemberg in the Sigmaringen district between Stuttgart and Konstanz.
