Hundreds of shoes - aligned in front of the Ministry of Interior, in memory of missing children

Hundreds of pairs of shoes were aligned in front of the Ministry of Interior on Saturday to draw attention to the cases of missing children.

The event was organised "to draw attention to the fact that the tragedy in Caracal is not an isolated case".

The event, organised by PNL (National Liberal Party) Bucharest, started at 11.05 am, the time of the first call to 112 of Alexandra Macesanu.

The head of the PNL Bucharest branch, Violeta Alexandru, spoke about the need for professionalization in the management of missing persons cases.

"A number of persons working in the public system need to be specialized to be able to handle this kind of situations, special situations for which you need a certain level of training to deal with," said Violeta Alexandru, pointing out that "ten policemen, ten specialists per county" should be trained for this.

At the same time, the head of PNL Bucharest underscored the need for evaluations within the police system.

"We demand some top-down, bottom-up evaluations be carried out at the level of the police system, at all decision levels and be communicated publicly, since we all known that the Ministry does not like this practice of transparency and communication. However, this time we ask them to communicate publicly what the competence levels are," she said.

The organiser of the event, Daniel Ciungu, said that it was designed to sound an alarm: 400 missing children are not found every year.

"We see that many young people are leaving Romania, they are either kidnapped or deceived and they are taken to other countries and they are used and abused. It's a big problem for Romania that it fails to protect its citizens. The personal safety of each citizen it is something that cannot be negotiated," he said.

Daniel Ciungu also spoke about "public pressure" in the context of Alexandra Macesanu's case.

"It is a case that for many years has not been encountered and the public pressure itself ... everyone is just nervous. That's the right word, I think. Of course this is the time when we should act," said the organiser of the action.

In front of the Ministry of Interior, in the area of the Iuliu Maniu statue, they aligned approximately about 200 pairs of shoes, plush toys, a candle and the book "The stolen child" by Ian McEwan.

According to official figures, in Romania, last year, 4,000 minors went missing. 3,600 were found.

Last Wednesday, Alexandra Macesanu, a 15-year-old girl from Dobrosloveni commune, Olt County, went missing after hitchhicking heading for Caracal. The minor called emergency number 112 three times, saying she was kidnapped by a man, but authorities were unable to identify where she was. Investigators began the search of the 66-year-old man's home Friday morning, about 19 hours after the girl's call.

On Saturday, DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism) informed that the lab tests conducted in the Caracal case showed the genetic profile of a single person - Alexandra Mihaela Macesanu, results based on a scientific comparison between the genetic profile for which samples were collected from the defendant's house and the genetic profile of the girl's parents.