With drones, rescue dogs and hundreds of volunteers, the missing Jeffrey and Emma is being sought. ‘Know that you can really find something’

Opposite the community center of the Groningen Finsterwolde, the bus of Coordination Platform Vissering, a foundation that sets searches with volunteers in collaboration with the police is parked. The Buurthuis, Party Center Finnewold, is the collection point for people who want to search for the missing Jeffrey (10) and his sister Emma (8) from Beerta. « Do you know where to look? » Asks one of the many journalists who have arranged around Izanne de Wit, nationally coordinator of missing people at the police. « No, the whole of the Netherlands is the search area, » she says. « But we have to start somewhere. »

The children have been missing since Saturday afternoon and are probably abducted by their father Klaas B.. On Sunday, an Amber Alert was sent, with the name and a photo of the father and the license plate of the car in which he probably took them. The search area extends beyond the municipality of Oldambt, which already includes fifteen village centers. Also in Germany and Belgium there is a search and even a billboard in the center of Amsterdam is called upon to look out for the children. « We need seventeen million people to look for them, » says De Wit.

The concerns about the well -being of the children have only increased since the weekend. « A farewell letter was found, » confirms De Wit. The police wrote that on Monday: « We fear the lives of the children because there are indications that their father wants to rob himself and the children of life. » Yet De Wit remains hopeful. « We hope to trace them and bring them to safety. » The half -brother of Jeffrey and Emma has announced on Tuesday that they will be distraught. « We miss them that way, » he said. « The only thing I can ask: please keep searching, don’t give up. »

Search area

The search in the area where father and children come from, started on Monday but attracts more and more people. On the first day tire tracks were found in the polder, but further research did not lead to a breakthrough. More than two hundred volunteers participated in the search on Monday, on Tuesday that number is even greater. De Wit says in the cameras and microphones of a multitude of media that people who come to help must know what they are starting. « Know that you can also find something, » she says.

« Don’t just go just search, » is also the advice of the police. Volunteers can register at the hotline, there they get a vest and a puncture and they have to form a group of three to five people. « Can I go to you? » Sounds from the line that has formed for the registration point. On a map of the area, divided into squares, the groups are designated an area so that work is done systematically. « You are 362, can you find it? Pay attention to water edges and any car tracks, » the volunteers are told. Via a QR code they can add themselves to the group app ‘seekers app Finsterwolde’, for when there are updates.

The people who help with the search do not only come from the area. For example, two men who ‘a total of four drones’ have spent half an hour in the car to offer air support. They are in a group app with ‘more than a hundred members’, in which calls are shared for these types of action. « And if you get such a call, then you go. »

If you have children, even at the same age, then it is dear to you

Google Earth

Marc van de Mars (40) and Ed Kamp (48) have been in the car for an hour and a half. « We looked and thought on Google Earth: that would really be such a place where someone could go. » They come from Epe, between Apeldoorn and Zwolle. « If you have children, even at the same age, then it is dear to you. » The warning that whoever searches can also find them can ignore them. « Suppose we find something, then we take a step back and we get the authorities. »

Jarno Dingemans (52) owns the community center. In the municipality of Oldambt, which also includes the village center Beerta, this is the only place where there is still a cafe, he says. « The father of the children came here too. Thursday and Friday. » On Saturday he was called by the mother of the children. The couple has been apart for two months. « She asked if I knew where he was. Then I was told the story. The ground dropped from under my feet. I had not seen this coming, but you always belong to these kinds of dramas. »

Towards the end of the afternoon, more than « three hundred people » have already reported for the search, Dingemans has heard. And that is independent of the Veterans Search Team and Stichting Inzet Rescue Hond Nederland, which have gathered on a separate site. On the search card that is stuck on a table in one of the party tents, you can see that the areas that are bound by water are steadily finished. « And we expect many more people after dinner, » says Dingemans. « That was true yesterday. »

In the community center the volunteers can take free drinks and eating. « The Spar has sponsored bottles of fresh and the Poiesz supermarket in Beerta has brought fruit and cookies. That is a village, you look at each other. » He swears. « Sorry, but I am also angry, of course, and anxious, » he adds. « You see this often enough on television of course, but then you go to bed and you don’t think about it anymore. Now it’s close. I know them. I know him. I know those children. »

To share

Mail the editors