The mother of a missing six-year-old girl in Johor Bahru (JB) has appealed for information.
6-Year-Old Leo Jia Hui Goes Missing at JB Festival
On 20 July, Albertine Leo Jia Hui attended the Bon Odori festival at Iskandar Puteri’s Eco Galleria with her family.
Her family were vendors at the festival and she was last seen playing near their stall.
At around 8:30 pm, her father noticed she was missing.
According to China Press, her relatives and friends appealed on social media for any leads from netizens.
They have also contacted the police, who put out a statement on 21 July.
“She is approximately 120cm tall, has long black hair, fair skin, and is of thin build,” they said.
The police also reported that she was wearing a Minnie Mouse T-shirt and shorts at the time of her disappearance.
They released CCTV footage of her at 1:39 pm on the day of her disappearance, wearing the clothes as described.
Police searched the scene, including using a search-and-rescue dog named Milo.
Unfortunately, the festival’s many attendees had crowded the area with too many scents, and the good dog had great difficulty in trying to pick up Jia Hui’s scent.
Info of JB Missing Girl Case Spreads on Social Media
The police requested anyone with leads or information on the missing child to contact the Iskandar Pueri District police hotline at 019-2792095 or the Operations Room at 07-2212999.
They are also urged to contact their local police station.
Following the news, groups all over Singapore and Malaysia spread the information in Chinese, English, and Malay across the Internet and chat groups.
Johor’s Mentari Besar (the head of a specific Malaysian state with a monarch) Onn Hafiz Ghazi also spread the word of the disappearance.
His Facebook post has received 5.5k likes at press time.
Internet celebrity lawyer Jiang Zhaoshang also offered a reward of RM10,000 (around S$2,800) to anyone who returned the girl safely to her mother.
He highlighted the importance of time in missing people’s cases like this.
A netizen posted on Facebook, a clearer photo of the missing girl on the afternoon of the festival in JB, which they hoped could help with the search.
The netizen had taken the picture of Jia Hui by accident and it depicted the girl clearly in the reported Minnie Mouse T-shirt and shorts.
Jia Hui’s mother Ms Leo told China Press that her daughter was the third of four children. She is currently in kindergarten and often sets up stalls with her mother.
Ms Leo described Jia Hui as well-behaved and not prone to running around.
She said that she notified her relatives, friends, and Jia Hui’s godmother and godfather to look for the missing girl, but they had found nothing so far.
“My youngest child also kept trying to find her sister afterwards,” Ms Leo said, with photos showing her hugging said child while waiting for the police.
She mentioned being so worried she couldn’t eat or sleep.
Having posted her personal number online for leads, Ms Leo stated that she had received thousands of calls expressing condolences.
She denied a rumour of having received a blackmail call from a Thai number and also warned of fake news online from Internet trolls.
As of press time, it has been over 17 hours since Jia Hui’s disappearance.
We hope this case will have a happier ending, like the missing woman in Myanmar who reported herself as safe and healthy.
