Lina Sadar Khil: FBI joins search for three-year-old who disappeared from Texas playground
‘Like any big family with lots and lots of little kids, all of these children are precious to us,’ director of refugee services says
The FBI has joined the search for Lina Sadar Khil, the three-year-old girl who disappeared from a playground in San Antonio, Texas.
Police have said that Lina was last seen on Monday afternoon between 4pm and 5pm when her mom left her at the playground inside an apartment complex for an unclear period of time.
Federal agents are now also part of the search for the girl, who isn’t thought to have been taken by another member of the family, ABC News reported.
Police have described Lina as being around four feet tall and 55 pounds, and with straight, shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. When she vanished, she was wearing a black jacket, a red dress, and black shoes.
The San Antonio Police Department is now asking the public for help, adding that Lina could be in “grave, immediate danger”.
Chief of Police William McManus told Good Morning America that they have issued an Amber alert “because of the suspicious nature of the disappearance and the length of time. Search teams have gone door to door to check all 300 units in the complex as well as the vehicles in the parking lot.
“Nobody comes and goes without talking to a police officer,” the chief said.
Lina’s family are refugees, recently coming to the US from Afghanistan.
“We don’t know the family really well, but we know who they are,” Margaret Constantino, the executive director at the Center for Refugee Services, told ABC News. “Like any big family with lots and lots of little kids, all of these children are precious to us.”
“We are sparing no assets, no resources in trying to find three-year-old Lina,” Chief McManus told reporters. He has also said that both parents are cooperating with the investigation.
The mother has said that there were other children and parents at the playground during the time that she was not there when Lina is reported to have gone missing.
More than 29,000 Afghan refugees are still being housed at seven military bases across the US after they left Afghanistan before the chaotic American troop withdrawal from the country came to a close in August of this year.
More than 2,900 Afghans are at US military postings abroad as they await a flight to the US. As of Thursday, more than half of all the Afghans who have come to the US, 44,000 people, have restarted their lives in the US outside of the military bases, according to Politico.
The San Antonio Police Department is urging anyone who may have seen Lina or know who she is with, to call the SAPD Missing Person’s Unit at 210-207-7660.