Find A Person Missing Abroad

Immediate actions if a Ukrainian citizen is missing abroad

If possible, please, find out the following in advance:

• What were the intentions of the missing person when you or other people last talked to him or her (to visit somebody, to meet with somebody, to work out some issue, etc.)?
• Whether there were any past incidents when the missing person was absent for a long period of time without giving any warning to his or her relatives or acquaintances.  If so – it is necessary to check the possible locations based on the person’s prior disappearances.

After you have explored these possibilities, you have to apply for help to the local law enforcement body of Ukraine, and it would be better to do it as quickly as possible.

To do this, you need to fill out a written application to the head of the law enforcement agency, in which you should specify:

• Circumstances preceding the person’s disappearance
• Whether the missing person had a foreign and/or an internal (Ukrainian) passport
• Reasons they would be or are abroad (a contract, a tourist trip, a private invitation; with what firms or persons he or she cooperated with)
• Addresses and telephone numbers of the missing person and his or her acquaintances’ residence and work abroad
• What valuable possessions the missing person might carry
• What he or she was dressed in
• Descriptions of the missing person, the state of his or her health; if possible, add a recent photo of the person.

After being clarified and investigated, the aforementioned data will become the foundation of the law enforcement agency’s request to the National Central Bureau of Interpol in Ukraine, the Ministry of External of Ukraine, and the International Red Cross Organization (in countries where military actions and armed conflicts take place). This request regards the provision of legal support for organizing further work to ascertain possible locations of the missing person abroad.

The application on Ukrainian citizen missing abroad must be filed in a regional domiciliary department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.

If a Ukrainian citizen is missing abroad, it is recommended to apply to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, because Ukrainian people abroad are under the protection of Ukrainian diplomatic establishments.  To do so, it is necessary to apply to the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine and give the following information; it should be as thorough as possible:

• Full name, patronymic and surname of the person
• Date and place of birth
• Address of their permanent residence in Ukraine according to registration data
• Passport data
• Date they left the country
• Purpose of trip (if it was the offer of the firm, than what firm exactly, give it’s full address and telephone number)
• Appearance and specific descriptions of the person
• The date of the last contact and the address of the person’s possible location abroad
• Surnames, names, addresses and telephone numbers of the person in question’s acquaintances who live on the territory of a foreign country

If you do not have some of this information, it is obligatory to specify this fact.