Dutch family with young children disappeared without a trace: police conduct large-scale investigation | Abroad

The family, consisting of a father, a mother and three children, has been missing since last weekend. A fourth child, a teenager, was staying elsewhere at the time of the disappearance and is not missing.

The detective team investigating the family’s disappearance contacted all five family members by telephone on Tuesday evening. However, their whereabouts “are still not known to the police,” the Dutch police said in a statement. “The investigation team is therefore continuing to investigate.”

The police are also investigating several scenarios about what is going on with the family. The telephone contact did not provide sufficient information to assume that no criminal offenses have been committed, according to the police.

The police have conducted a major investigation at the address: according to local residents, “people in white suits” from the forensic investigation department spent hours in and around the house on Monday. That house has now been sealed at the front and back.

According to a neighbor, the village has been abuzz with rumors since then, but no one knows what happened or when exactly the family left. A local resident said he saw the family members on Saturday. Several neighbors say that the family’s black station wagon is also gone since the disappearance. The family’s second car was removed on Monday. The animal ambulance removed several birds and fish from the home.

The neighbors know that the family consists of a teenage girl, a boy of about 10 years old and two toddlers; a girl and a boy. They do not know the exact ages. The youngest three children are missing.

According to friends and schoolmates of the disappeared children, the eldest son stopped coming to school on Friday. Director Megan van Leeuwen of De Hien primary school in Dodewaard confirms that one of the children attends her school. She would not say whether the boy was there on Friday. She does say that he is in group 7, which corresponds to fifth grade. The two toddlers are not at De Hien.

She does not want to say how the school discovered that the family is missing. “We are in contact with his family and with the police,” is all Van Leeuwen wants to say about it.

“It has a lot of impact here, we are concerned. What we do is offer all options of support for the team and the students. Until now, this has involved discussing the concerns that children have when they come to school in class,” says director Van Leeuwen. “For we too continue in ignorance. We offer a listening ear and think about how we can pay attention to this in a good way. And also how we can pick up the thread again, which is also nice for children. But our concerns are great.”

Because what do you tell children? “We tell them that we don’t know either,” she says. “All we know is that the boy is not at school. And that we have heard that he, together with his family, is missing.”

There is a lot of unrest in the village about this, according to the director. “And the children take that to school,” she notices. “I think there are all kinds of emotions underneath.”

The eldest son is a member of football club vv Dodewaard. His team trained on Monday evening. “Teammates had seen that there were police at the house. The police spoke to a number of boys. That all made a big impression. Those boys are 10 to 12 years old,” says chairman Gerrit Tijssen of Dodewaard.

They also have no idea what is going on at the football club. “If there is more information, we would like to share it with the members. But we don’t know anything either. Should we have a meeting now? What do we say then? I’ll be there when the team trains on Wednesday evening. For a listening ear if you have any questions. But for now there’s not much we can do. And above all, hope that nothing bad is happening.”