“The boy is gone! Help!"
“The girl was lost, left home and did not return”
These words make you sweat, regardless of whether you have a child or not. This is a natural human reaction, the parental instinct to take care of the offspring.
When a person disappears, regardless of his age, the most frightening thing is the unknown and the imagination draws the wildest pictures in his head. Modern media, books and films on this topic have tried their best. Newspaper articles with an abundance of creepy details, speculating on a hot topic for the sake of circulation, plots like Silence of the Lambs that set the box office for film companies, horror stories told by word of mouth - all this entertains until it concerns you personally, but makes very much to worry when unhappiness happens to your loved ones.
But what really happens when a child is lost? How is it searched for and what technologies are used in the search?
Social projects sometimes turn to us in RUVDS and we provide them with free VPS: this is how we started working with the search group of volunteers of the OROOO PSO “Search for Missing Children - Eagle” . We talked with the head of the volunteers Oleg about how the search for missing children is organized, where teenagers most often disappear and what software they use for coordination.
How people were looked for in the Middle Ages
From the point of view of philosophy, this world is hostile to man. It is more difficult to create in it than to destroy; getting sick is easier than recovering; killing a person is easier than raising a child. With the development of civilization, man diligently created conditions for himself that change this balance in the opposite direction. A supportive environment, comfort, medications, and vaccinations have all made life much easier and more peaceful. Modern man is not afraid to walk within the city, even at night. Most of the dangers lurking are not wild animals or all sorts of uneven terrain, but the product of civilization itself, the passage of open hatches or ... other people.
"Pied Piper of Hameln". Augustine von Mörsperg, 1595.
These days, there is much less chance of being lost than ancestors and far more ways to find a missing person. Lack of understanding of how this world works has contributed to the development of superstition. The plots of the Pied Piper of Hamelin or Hansel and Gretel, the abduction of children by animals (Masha and the Bear) and mythical creatures (mermaids) were very common in ancient folklore. Tellingly, most often the heroes of such incidents are children, as more naive, inexperienced and weak representatives of society.
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In the Middle Ages, the search for the missing often relied more on magic than on objective means. Although hunting has brought up many trackers who can really help in finding people, sorcerers still could not do without. People who would now be prescribed some kind of drugs were seriously considered special, with supernatural powers. Fraudsters used all sorts of spells and rituals to fool people's heads. In primitive times, the direction of the search was determined by the starry sky or by throwing special dice. The search radius was only a few kilometers from the tribe's territory, and they searched only during the day.
On the territory of modern China, rock carvings dating from the 8th millennium BC have been discovered, depicting a man with a vine. In ancient Greece, sorceresses were engaged in the search for the missing. For the sake of fairness, it is worth admitting that now there are also psychos who consider themselves psychics, but they resort to the services of any "biolocators" incomparably less often.
Dowser, Engraving, France, 18th century
During the Middle Ages, dowsing was still quite an official profession. In the Roman Empire, detectives specializing in the search for people used special iron sticks, which "told" them the way to the missing. The search time was limited to ten days, after this period the person was officially considered dead. And there were many reasons for that, the forests were full of both predators and dashing people.
The motives for the search were not only personal, but also selfish. Taxation was already then, for non-payment they were collectively responsible, and paid with their personal property. If a person did not have the means and did not want to take off his last shirt, then it was easier to “disappear without a trace” than to become a debtor.
A large proportion of those who escaped were slaves who sought freedom at any opportunity. When there was a selfish interest in the search, they attracted serious specialists who, in modern terms, were given a real orientation with special signs, a description of appearance and clothing, and a stigma was also indicated for the search for slaves. The methods were also close to modern ones (with the exception of technologies): the detectives began their search with the relatives of the fugitive and, more often than not, found the missing there. The search radius in the Middle Ages expanded to tens of kilometers, and detectives worked not only during the day, but also at night. It is easy to guess that the caught debtors or slaves did not expect anything good, so they tried to disappear as reliably as possible. To search for slaves, as a rule, they sent other slaves from among the most "trusted" If the event was crowned with success, then the detective slaves were given a small piece of land and could even be freed. Otherwise - demotion to the level of ordinary ones. Unlike a slave, a small army could be sent in search of a noble person.
XIX-XX century
The next logical step was the creation of organizations that are purposefully engaged precisely in the search for the missing. One of the first to do this was the International Committee of the Red Cross .
The ICRC was founded in 1863 by a Swiss businessman, Henri Dunant. It was originally called the International Committee for Assistance to the Wounded. It was Henri's initiative that the “ First Geneva Convention. On improving the fate of the sick and wounded warring armies on the battlefield . "
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At the end of 1914, at the height of the First World War, the ICC founded the "International Prisoners of War Agency", which, in addition to returning people from captivity through the exchange, transfer of letters and parcels, kept a card index, in which there were more than 7 million files on prisoners and missing without a trace. Through this directory, more than 2 million prisoners were identified and helped to contact their relatives.
After the Second World War, the number of people captured and missing was calculated in absolutely crazy numbers. The IAPDV collected a card index of 45 million prisoners of war around the world, with the exception of prisoners of Nazi Germany, whose leadership only at the very end of the war allowed observers from the IWC to some of its camps. Soon after the end of the war in the summer of 1947, an archive was founded in the small town of Bad Arolsen, which became the center where a huge amount of information about prisoners of war, forced laborers and refugees was collected. Now it is named after the city in which it is located: Arolsen Archives .
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World wars are over, technologies have stepped forward, operational search measures have been standardized and put on stream long ago, the percentage of detection is higher every year. The number of organizations that are looking for missing persons is also growing. As before, the largest is the "ICC Search Service", whose branches are open in all countries where the activities of the Red Cross are represented; in the USSR, such a service began operating in March 1945.
Our days
By the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century, the emergency services and the police had departments that were directly involved in the search for missing people. In addition, many private commercial and non-profit organizations have been created, including even television shows.
TV show "Wait for me"
Modern technologies are very helpful in finding missing people, the most obvious is the determination of the coordinates of a mobile phone at a moment close to disappearance. A couple of years ago, Megafon launched a project together with Liza Alert to search for potential witnesses. The PSO (search and rescue squad) informs the cellular operator of the approximate area where the wanted person was last seen, and Megafon identifies the people who were in the area at about the same time and sends an orientation with signs via SMS. During testing, about 60 mailings were carried out, after which all the missing were successfully found. Next in line are automatic assistants - face recognition systems, which are successfully used by China, and in large cities of Russia they are already working successfully, or are about to be launched ...
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Unfortunately, high technologies do not always help. On September 21, a shocking crime took place in Lithuania. In the morning, a girl called the 112 service and said that she had been kidnapped, raped and now being taken to kill in the trunk of a car, she even named the brand of the car. The mobile phone did not have a SIM card and the only number that could be dialed was the telephone of the "One Help Center".
The girl tried to call the service three times, the operators talked for more than half an hour with the girl, whose last words were that she smells smoke. After that, only the crackling of a fire was heard on the phone, which he transmitted until it burned out completely. And about an hour later, the mushroom picker, who went out in the morning on a quiet hunt, reported that he saw a burning car in the forest.
Remains of the VolksWagen Passat car in which the girl was burned.
Despite the fact that the base stations were driving a mobile phone, and one of the conversations lasted almost half an hour, the mobile operator was unable to establish the whereabouts of the girl. According to the results of the investigation, it turned out that it was for the function of accurately determining the location of a cell phone, just for the sake of such cases, that the operator was allocated a lot of money from the state budget, but the equipment was never adjusted.
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Later on the control desk received information that the disappeared on February 12, Vladimir Nikolayevich Kruzhai, born in 1960 from the village of Borshchevka, Oryol region, was found dead 1.5 km from the place of residence by the postman of the territorial post office.
In Russia, the most widely known are two non-profit volunteer organizations that specialize in tracing - Liza Alert and Search for Missing Children .
We help the latter organization and, using the example of its subdivision in the city of Oryol, we will tell you about how modern volunteer Search and Rescue Teams work.
About the organization (Oryol)
The story of the "Search for Missing Children" began with the Youth Operational Detachment, which kept order in its city. In the tenths, the rapid development of volunteer organizations to search for missing people began, in particular, “Lisa Alert” appeared. They even competed a little with each other, opening their branches in the regions. After the Oryol youth operational group took part in several search and rescue operations, they received a call from the Moscow organization "Search for Missing Children" and offered to become their Oryol branch, to which they gladly agreed.
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The activities of organizations like the Search and Rescue Squad are clearly regulated and they can only act within their competence. The “Search for Missing Children”, in addition to the obvious, is engaged in the search for missing adults, as well as the prevention of neglect and delinquency against children (a joint project “Child in Danger” with the state to respond to reports of crimes against minors). The squad develops teaching materials, conducts educational meetings in schools and colleges, and trains volunteers.
Structure
Now there are about 70 people in the organization who are directly involved in the search, 4 operational attendants in the call center, 10 IT specialists and a detachment with a material and technical base. Almost everyone in the squadron is volunteers who joined it because everyone has their own story of those that the guys are engaged in, runaway teenagers, missing loved ones ...
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The bureaucracy in the detachment is minimal, there are just as many direct members as is necessary for the functioning of a legal entity (except for the head Oleg Tyutyakin, there are two more people).
The structure is clear and simple. Several senior executive assistants have the greatest responsibility , who are responsible for:
- conducting a search in the natural environment;
- conducting a search within the city;
- carrying out preventive measures.
Basically, this is observation and work with difficult teenagers who often ran away from home and more than once returned home in a squadron.
Search Team Leaders are volunteers who are responsible for equipment, liaising with the police, exchanging information during the search process, and representing the squad leadership during operation.
And, of course, the volunteers themselves are the people who comb the area, directly engaged in search in the field.
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In addition to setting tasks, senior search teams are responsible for newcomers to the detachment who do not yet have field work experience. The specificity is such that sometimes something terrible happens and, instead of a living person, they find his body. Not every new volunteer can calmly react to this, and the task of the elder becomes the moral support of the comrade.
Technologies
When the detachment was just starting its work, the volunteers were coordinated using a site made on free CRM and Roschata . Roschat is a platform that was originally developed for law enforcement agencies, it has a messenger, an Internet radio and a digital PBX. The main feature is that information from there cannot be copied or taken a screenshot, which ensures compliance with the law on personal data, without which such an organization will not now be allowed to work.
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Time passed, the detachment grew, and such simple means were not enough. There was an idea to contact the guys from Nekst Tekhnika, who are developing software for dispatching emergency services. They met us halfway, and since then the detachment has been using their Istok-SM program. This is a system of an automated workstation for a dispatcher, where information from all sources flows: phone calls, SMS, mail, and the like. In addition, communication with all special services is integrated into it: the police, ambulance, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the detachment's volunteers. As soon as the dispatcher receives a call, the system shows the coordinates of the caller, and you can immediately start filling out the missing person's card: name, surname, age and in general all available information at the time of contact. Later, data on the work of finding a person is entered into the card: which of the volunteers left, which car, did they need to refuel, and so on, including the marks of the search engines themselves.
The same program is installed in all special services, if the help of doctors is required, the ambulance team is called with one button and the data from the card of the missing, necessary for the doctors, is sent to their server.
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On the morning of January 11, 2021, the volunteers contacted the hospital and checked everything again, later a connection was established with his parents. At the moment, the teenager contacted them. The staff of the juvenile affairs department is also keeping this situation under control.
The field crews work with the Istok-SM mobile client, where the functionality necessary for working in the field is left: you can view the application, add data to the dispatcher and send a small report on the work. Smartphones with this program are monitored by the dispatcher, movement tracks are kept so that the operational duty officer can see which square has already been combed. He can send a general mailing to all volunteers or write to some separate group if they deviated from the route or ask them to go and check some object.
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Currently, minors have been transferred to their parents. No illegal actions were committed against them, nothing threatened their life and health.
The main database of Istok-SM is stored on the home server, and the operators access it through the VPS .
Server characteristics
Search work
The dispatcher receives information through two channels.
The first is a direct appeal to the organization. In this case, first, the data is transmitted to the police (squadron officers cannot bypass the police and replace them with themselves), and then immediatelythe search begins. By the way, the police also start searching on the day of the request. The fact that the police first wait for three days is a myth. But she has a certain procedure, without which it is impossible to start looking. First of all, the police go to the place of residence of the missing person, take a statement from relatives, confiscate personal belongings for DNA collection (toothbrush, comb, etc.), call the dog handlers if the child disappears in the forest or countryside (there is no point in using a dog in the city , there are too many foreign odors), transfers the collected information to the operational duty officer.
And only after observing all these formalities (absolutely not superfluous!), He joins the search.
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Currently, the minor has been transferred to her parents. No illegal actions were committed against her, nothing threatened her life and health.
The second channel is the police themselves. Most often, they contact the squad after two or three days. In this case, volunteers immediately receive orientation and all related information (where the person disappeared, information about relatives, other connections, etc.) and are included in the search. It is not necessary to immediately go into the forest and start combing, sometimes you first need to post information on social networks, for example.
The police do not always turn to the volunteer squad. Sometimes its employees are simply not aware of the existence of such a USAR team, and sometimes it is risky to attract volunteers if the missing person is a criminal who is hiding from the police and may pose a danger to them.
Most often, difficult teenagers are lost, about 80% of all missing. These guys, more often than not, leave on their own and not for the first time. Small children go missing very rarely, 2-3 cases per year. Usually it is: "they walked and got lost", "friends took them to the next yard" or "invited to visit someone."
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Currently, the minor has been found and handed over to his legal representative. There were no illegal actions against him, nothing threatened his life and health.
The final decision on the organization of the search is made by the state body that is responsible for the person before the law in each specific case, usually the police. They should assume the degree of danger a person may be in and make decisions based on this. If this is a difficult teenager who is not leaving for the first time, then most likely everything is in order with him. But if the grandmother went into the forest and did not return, the search will begin immediately.
A volunteer on duty is engaged in setting the task for the detachment, these guys work after three days. They accept calls, have full access to the Istok-SM functionality, as well as to information from the Accident Registration Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. If the Bureau has data on accidents, then the person on duty calls hospitals, morgues and emergency rooms. If there are unknown people there, then the duty officer sends volunteers to check, maybe this is a "loss".
If no one is alike in hospitals and morgues, then the dispatcher discusses the situation with the police, collects information from her and decides to start a search operation. An orientation is created and mailing to volunteers is carried out through all channels (SMS, social networks, chats, etc.). When a volunteer enters the mobile application, the dispatcher is immediately notified of this. Then a senior search group is appointed and the meeting point is determined, where the hunt groups drive up and equipment is distributed.
Each city has its own "points of attraction". These are the places where a teenager most likely can go: shopping and entertainment centers, cinemas, sports grounds, abandoned buildings, "vpiski" in apartments, etc. Each child has their own, and they can be determined only if you collect as much information as possible about the missing person. The Inspectors for Minors help in this, they have data on all difficult teenagers who come into their field of vision. It often makes sense to conduct a search on the addresses they have, because the social circle of difficult teenagers is other guys like that.
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If no one could be quickly found at these addresses and "points of attraction", and the search drags on for two or three days, then a meeting is arranged at the police station, on the subject of whether it makes sense to continue the dense search for this person, because volunteers cannot around the clock look for someone one. Unfortunately, there are more missing ones. A decision is made whether the search will be resumed "in the area", whether it is worth combing the squares again, going out to patrol the streets, interviewing passers-by and leaving directions in stores, or switching volunteers to information work, posting ads and monitoring social networks.
What to do next will depend on why the teen ran away. It can be a conflict with parents, which the parents themselves can hide from the police and guardianship authorities, or maybe his friends hit him, or he stole something and is now afraid of getting caught. To find out all this from the parents, they take the missing person's devices: a laptop or a desktop, a tablet. They are hacked and read the child's correspondence, watch his communication in social networks and chats. If parents write a statement under Articles 144 or 145, such actions are legal.
If, according to information from hacked devices, it turns out that he could have left for another city, then local volunteers and the police are raised. It happens that in this case, the child is found quite quickly. Sometimes teenagers get in touch on their own.
In the event that a child is lost in the forest, all services are immediately alerted: the Ministry of Emergencies, the police, the investigative committee, volunteers. The forest is divided into squares and all groups are given tasks on where to comb and in what order. There are very few fatalities in this case, over the past 4 years there was only one - the baby drowned when the grandmother did not follow him.
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Currently, the minor has been transferred to his parents. No illegal actions were committed against him, nothing threatened his life and health.
There was a case when two girls told everyone that they would flee to Ukraine. This information was passed on to the border guards, the outposts were alerted, and the girls just joked and sat at the station. They found this out when they posted a photo on the social network and the volunteers recognized the local cinema on it.
Who can volunteer?
Anyone can become a volunteer.
The main thing is resistance to stress, and everyone will find something to do. It is not necessary to comb the forest in squares, a lot of work can be done from home. If a person does not cope with field work, then he can invent and give lectures, write manuals, disseminate information, and so on. There is work for everyone.
You just need to be prepared for the fact that the volunteers are carefully punched through the organs so that he does not turn out to be a dangerous criminal or a pedophile.
Results of 2020
In 2020, the search and rescue squad received 1,324 appeals, of which 201 search events were carried out by the squadron's volunteers, together with the police and other non-profit organizations to search for missing people.
- Found alive: 98 people
- Found dead: 11 people
- Wanted remain: 9 people
In total, in the Oryol region, applications were submitted to search for 118 people. Of them:
- Persons over 18 years old: 65 people
- Adolescents aged 14 to 18: 34 people
- Minors, under 14 years old: 19 people
