Bahrain learning of vanished girl

MANAMA, Bahrain — They marched in T-shirts bearing the smiling face of a young girl and the slogan "Together Searching for The Missing Child — Fatima." They handed out leaflets with a number to call if Fatima was seen.

It looked much like the reaction to the disappearance of a child in the United States or Europe, except that 11-year-old Fatima Tawfeeq Ibrahim Mohammed has been missing for nine months.

Among the more than 400,000 Bahrainis in this deeply conservative island kingdom there is a widespread feeling that a vanished child is no one's business but the family's.

"They think it is Fatima's personal problem. (That) if this becomes a norm in Bahrain, it will be very dangerous for the whole society," said Soroor Qarooni, vice president of the Bahrain Women Society, which has taken up Fatima's cause.

The fact that a grass-roots reaction is beginning, typified by the march across the Sheik Isa bin Salman Bridge in the Persian Gulf heat, suggests that not all Bahrainis feel that way. They have seen on television and the Internet how Western societies treat missing-children cases, and don't see why they should be any different.

Children rarely disappear in Bahrain, which has little crime. That may be why Fatima's father was apparently unconcerned when, as he later told family members, she ran away from her home in East Riffa, 9 miles southeast of the capital, Manama, in December.

The father, Tawfeeq Ibrahim Mohammed, never contacted police. In February, Fatima's 23-year-old sister, Munira Mohammed, visited her father's home and noticed the girl was missing. Mohammed said her father at first told her not to do anything for another week, confident Fatima would come back. She waited, and then went to the police.

The Bahrain Women Society read of the case in March in the newspapers and as time passed with no sign of the girl, decided to go public.

Mohammed described Fatima as "a very quiet and shy girl."

It was not a happy home. The parents separated more than three years ago, and Fatima and a younger sister lived with their father and his girlfriend. Fatima and her father often went out begging together, pro-government newspapers report.

Five other children lived with older sister, who is married. Qarooni, of the women's group, said the missing girl's mother calls her monthly to check for news.

"She is still missing and it's really worrying that we can't find someone in such a small country," Qarooni said. Bahrain consists of 33 islands with a total area one-sixth the size of Rhode Island.

The campaign is based on those conducted in the U.S. and Britain. "We read about their experiences on the Internet and we used the one which would be more suitable for our society," Qarooni said.

Just 20 people showed up at the Aug. 23 march. The women's real success came from appealing to the prime minister two days later.

Within days, government newspapers were reporting that the prime minister, Sheik Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, had ordered police to step up the search.

Police declined to comment to The Associated Press except to say they were intensifying the search. But the newspapers quoted Col. Awatif al-Jishi of the Women's Police Directorate as saying officers were accompanying the father to places that he and his daughter frequented.

Police had questioned the father, believed to be in his late 30s, and released him, and they have dug up areas near his home, according to family members and the women's group.

If Fatima is veiled, she would be indistinguishable from other girls. Custom forbids a male officer to lift the veil, so a female officer is accompanying the men on their search, al-Jishi told the newspapers.

On Monday, Fatima's relatives appeared on state television to plead for her return. The next day, newspapers reported, Bahrain's King Sheik Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa met Fatima's sister Munira, her husband and her two younger siblings and told them "we as a country and society should place this matter among our priorities."

Qarooni, of the women's group, said Bahrainis are slowly gaining awareness. She said some have called to report sightings of Fatima, and some have offered to help her.

"Hopefully this case will raise an alarm that we have such problems and that we have to do something seriously about it," Qarooni said.