Jewish Agency offers NIS 100,000 reward for info leading to missing girl
9-year-old Haymanut Kasau last seen on security cam footage on February 25; police have no leads on her whereabouts
The Jewish Agency is offering an NIS 100,000 ($27,500) reward for information that leads authorities to a nine-year-old girl who has been missing from the northern city of Safed for over two weeks.
This is the second prize that has been offered for information on Haymanut Kasau’s whereabouts. Last week, the Committee for Ethiopian Jews offered NIS 10,000 ($2,750) for relevant information on Kasau.
Police are continuing the search for Kasau, though there are currently no reports of leads in the hunt.
Last week, Ynet reported that police had broadened their search area from Safed and Meron to include the Rosh Pina area.
“This is one of the biggest mysteries I’ve come across in my career… it’s as if the earth swallowed the girl up,” a police official told the Mako news site last week.
“We won’t be able to look for the girl forever. We’ve invested tremendous efforts in the past two weeks, but we’re still at square one. If there isn’t significant progress soon, we’ll move on to the intelligence level,” he added.
Kasau’s mother, Benchi, has been pleading for her daughter to be found, telling Kan news in February that “it seems her disappearance was planned.”
Shortly after Kasau’s disappearance, police ruled out the possibility that a family member may have kidnapped her.
Last week, some 1,200 volunteers joined the search efforts.
The girl was last seen in security footage at 7:45 p.m. on February 25 handing out municipal election leaflets outside a Jewish Agency absorption center where she has lived for the past three years since immigrating with her family from Ethiopia.
She is 1.20 meters (3’11”) tall and is slim with dark hair and dark eyes.
She was wearing pink pants, a black skirt and a white shirt at the time of her disappearance.
