Rami el-Gebali/Missing Children
Cairo — Just two weeks after he was born in Jordan, Wissam Mohamed bought sick. His Jordanian father and Egyptian mom’s relationship was falling aside, and his father did one thing that might form the 44-year-old’s complete life: He advised Mohamed’s mom that their child had died within the hospital.
“He was afraid she might take me away with her,” Mohamed advised CBS News.
The couple divorced, and Mohamed’s bereaved mom returned to Egypt’s capital.
When Mohamed grew up, he began on the lookout for his mom. He did not know if she was useless or alive. All he had was her title, from his delivery certificates, and a imprecise thought of the place she had lived in Cairo a long time in the past.
He traveled to Egypt a few instances, hoping to seek out her, however failed.
“She used to live in a place in Cairo that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1992,” he stated. Finding somebody – particularly an older individual unlikely to be on social media in a rustic of greater than 100 million folks isn’t any small feat.
“I only knew for sure that she was alive about four years ago, when the lawyers told me they couldn’t find a death certificate for her,” he stated. But he nonetheless had no thought the place she could be.
Then, not too way back, an aunt in Jordan discovered some previous photographs of Mohamed’s mom. She posted them on social media, and certainly one of her buddies contacted an Egypt-based Facebook group known as merely, “Missing Children.”
Rami el-Gebali, an engineer who based the Missing Children web page in 2015, stated his objective at first was simply to lift consciousness about lacking folks.
“I first believed that once a child is lost, most likely they will not be found,” he stated. That modified, nonetheless, after the primary case was resolved by way of the web page, and somebody was reunited with their household.
“If we can find one person,” he thought, “we might find the rest.”
The web page grew rapidly to cowl Egypt and past. The group now has virtually 2 million followers on Facebook, a separate web site, and seven,000 volunteers who assist el-Gebali sift by way of the posts and data that are available a bid to hyperlink up long-lost family members.
Mohamed’s story was posted on the Facebook group’s web page with a photograph of his mom and a caption studying: “Your son is alive and looking for you.”
Within 24 hours, on December 7, Mohamed’s mom was positioned by way of the web page. He flew to Cairo the following day, and she or he met him on the airport.
“You thought I was dead?” Mohamed requested his mom as he hugged her for the primary time.
“They told me so,” Reda Mahmoud advised him.
“I am sorry, I have been looking for you for 20 years,” he stated again.
Rami el-Gebali/Missing Children
Their story went viral in Egypt, however el-Gebali stated it was simply one other completely happy ending for the Missing Children workforce — certainly one of greater than 3,000 up to now. He stated their work continues, with about 8,000 folks nonetheless reported lacking on the web page left to trace down.
El-Gebali stated he believed success tales like Mohamed’s, with the media consideration they garner, might give different households hope.
“There are lots of people who have lost hope and stopped searching for their loved ones,” he stated. “We aim to inspire at least one side to have hope, because maybe the other side is still out there.”
Mohamed advised CBS News he by no means misplaced hope of seeing his mom: “For the past 20 years, I’ve always believed that I will find her.”
El-Gebali stated Missing Children’s work has expanded from finding lacking folks, to preventing human trafficking and serving to police seek out little one predators.
“We monitor social media for keywords like ‘adopting children,’ ‘selling children,’ and we track them down,” el-Gebali stated of the work, including that members of the workforce have additionally performed undercover work on social media and messaging apps at the side of Egyptian police.
He stated the group’s efforts had already helped Egyptian police put seven folks behind bars.