The Police is doing all it can to continue keeping missing persons cases in the public attention, the Police Commissioner has said. 

Police Commissioner, Fuiavailiili Egon Keil told the Samoa Observer on Thursday the Police are doing their best to inform the nation about cases of missing people. 

“Well we do our best to bring it to the people’s attention right away, that’s why we put them on Facebook right away,” Fuiavailiili said.

The Commissioner said social media is the source of several hints, phone calls, and leads.

On December 30 2020, the Samoa Police, Prisons & Corrections Facebook page posted a notice about a missing child, Junior Ben aka J.B. Samuelu, a 7-year-old of Fogasavaii who had been missing since 28 December. 

On 14 December, a notice for another person missing since 8 December, 56-year-old Taoipu Vaigafa of Samusu Aleipata, was also posted on the Samoa Police, Prisons & Corrections Facebook page.  

Fuiavailiili does not know precisely how many people across the nation are currently listed as missing.

But he says Police have to close unsolved cases, a process that includes providing the public with notifications that people have been found, in whatever circumstance.

He said that the main reason for advertising these cases is to hopefully get people back to their families. 

Fuiavailiili told this newspaper of a case where they still have not heard anything back and the person has not been found.

“Which is very disturbing considering Samoa is small and there’s a lot of families,” he said. 

“So somebody should know but you never know these things, so I can’t be forming opinions because we don’t know what’s happening in their family or in that part of Samoa.”