Holland woke up with a gasp today. Millie Boele was finally found. That gasp immediately turned into grief. Millie was not found alive.
If you live in the Netherlands, you probably are aware of what I am talking about. If you do not live here, I will tell you what it is all about. Millie is a 12-year-old girl who went missing on the evening of March 10. After six days of search, with the involvement of her neighbours in Dordrecht, she was found dead, buried in the garden of another neighbour. Two houses away from where she used to live.
Terrible, terrible news. Or in Dutch, you can say, ¨verschrikkelijk¨ (fers-ghri-ke-lik). I have no other word to describe it but that. It is an understatement to say that it is unbelievable. There is also no need to utter those words, because believe it, it´s true. This just happened in Holland. It happens everywhere I know. Years of working in the news must have easily trained me to accept incidents like this one. But when it does, it still shocks you.
Here in Holland, what shocks them more is the fact that the suspect is a police officer. In your ideal world, that is just revolting. In the Philippines, this detail will probably not shock anyone. To be honest, it was not the detail that gave me goosebumps that´s why it was not the first information I shared. What really disturbed me was the fact that she was just two houses away. I can´t help but think of the novel, ¨The Lovely Bones¨.
The night she went missing
Millie was last heard alive on March 10 at 5:30 p.m. when her mother called her to ask what she would like to eat for dinner. She said that she had to hung up because a neighbour is at the door. A few minutes after, her mother called again but she did not answer her celphone. When her mother came home, she did not find Millie. Only her celphone and jacket were left as traces of her.
Around 9p.m. the same day, her parents reported the case to the police. The next day, the Amber Alert was activated for the missing girl. Amber Alert is a national alert system for abducted children inspired by the case of Amber Hagerman who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996. It was first adapted in the United States.
Apart from the Amber Alert, leaflets about the missing girl were given away by her neighbours in the street and even the train station in Dordrecht. People were mobilized through sms and Twitter.
Why? Why? Why?
Just like in any abduction-murder case, many questions keep haunting that of Millie. Why was the Amber Alert activated too late? Why is it getting a lot of attention in the media? Is the media handling it the right way? Will the next missing child get so much attention too?
Nobody can answer the question as to why the Amber Alert was activated too late. But the fact remains that the first hours of abduction are most crucial. In the case of Millie, it is suspected that she was murdered (this word gives me the goosebumps again) within three hours of kidnapping.
As to why the media gives too much attention to this is not a puzzle to me. The media cannot give attention to all news or all missing children all the time. That is humanely impossible. But it is good that this one is given enough attention. I personally believe that this is not too much.
Because of this case, we are informed that there is an Amber Alert in the Netherlands. Because of the attention given to this case, we are more alert of what is going on around us. It is disheartening that this can happen and it is not too much to show sad family members on television to prove how unpleasant it is. It is not just another family drama. It is a story of injustice. And that affects us all.
What is too much is showing the same (and by this, I mean the same) story on television every single day. Hart van Nederland did this and for a news program, (ok, for a program that claims to be a news program) this is unacceptable. It was also appalling to see photos of the suspect being circulated on the internet. Suspects have the right to due process, you know.
What happens now
Residents in Holland who have been following the Millie Boele case are probably still in shock with what happened. Suddenly, Millie just became the image of every child who can be victims to such inhumane acts. I do not have to be, nor do I want to be, in the position of her family to realize how dark this day could be for them. They must have been asking themselves what they did wrong. Tracing their steps. Torturing their minds by thinking, ¨if I stayed with her that day, this would not have happened.¨
But it did. I hope that this death will not only shake but wake us up. I hope that we all will subscribe to Police updates and Amber Alerts, follow these institutions on Twitter or in any other way we can. I hope that this incident will not be another abduction. Another murder. I hope that we, or a lot of us, from this day forward, will care more about what goes on around us. Act quickly on incidents that do not look normal and not let a moment pass. Because the only solution to breach of security is vigilance. #
