The Dutch, German and Belgian police have launched a campaign together with Interpol to find out the identities of 22 girls and women believed to have been murdered and then abandoned in one of the three countries. Most cases take place between 1990 and 2010, but the most recent is a Belgian case from 2019. The list of victims includes nine Dutch cases.
For the launch of the Identify Me campaign, well-known women from the participating countries recorded a collaborative, multilingual video in which they called the public and passed on information about the murdered women. For the Netherlands, singer S10 and actress Carice van Houten are participating.
According to the police, in almost all cases it is certain that the victims died as a result of violence. Who they are, where they come from and why they were left behind in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands is unknown.
Detection video
Since Wednesday, interpol.int/im has an overview of all cases, including the nine Dutch ones. An overview of the available information has been made for each case. The list also includes facial reconstructions, videos and photos of jewelry and clothing belonging to the murdered women. In addition, all leads, such as the estimated age, hair color, eye color and other body characteristics, have been mapped out. In collaboration with the television program Opsporing Verzoeken, a search video has been made for each case that can be shared online.
The nine Dutch cases concern, among others, the girl from Hell and the girl from Teteringen. “Each of the twenty-two cases is tragic and heartbreaking,” say initiators Carina van Leeuwen and Martin de Wit of the Dutch police. “The victims were often killed with great violence. We know of some that they were abused or starved in the period before their death.”
According to the police, partly because the women presumably come from other countries than where they were found, it has never been possible to determine their identity. They may have been deliberately left here to frustrate the police investigation, the police think. The victims are buried in nameless graves. “But there must be people in the world who miss the victims, mostly young women and girls. Family members, friends or other acquaintances,” says Van Leeuwen.