THE mother of a missing 12-year-old girl is appealing to the public to help find her daughter.

Sabiena Sheriff 32, sat in her kitchen floor on Tuesday, clutching a photograph of her daughter with tears streaming down her cheeks, as she spoke with the media appealing to them to help get the word out to everyone to come forward with any information that may lead to the safe return of her child, Devina Outar.

“Please tell everyone if they see my daughter to contact the nearest police station or me on 658-9084. We just want her to return home safely and if she is seeing or reading this we want you to know we love you and will not give up until you are home safe again,” the woman said tearfully. The pre-teen left her grandmother’s home in Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam Berbice on June 16th, to pick up an item at a nearby shop but never returned. Her parents and relatives have been searching since then but to no avail.

Sherriff explained to the Guyana Chronicle that sometime in August, approximately two months after her daughter’s disappearance, a primary school friend of her daughter had reached out to her telling a harrowing tale of her and Devina being kept against their will, bound and abused somewhere in the Berbice River by two brothers.

The friend said that she, herself, was abducted by their mother but was rescued by her father and a police after she was brought out from the Berbice River and left at a house at Mara, East Bank Berbice.
The distraught mother said this information was relayed to the Police and Child Care and Protection Agency, however, the teen’s story changed when she spoke with the police after some details were not adding up, and in turn accused her of bribery, to tell the tale so that the police can look for her daughter in Berbice River, an accusation Sherriff vehemently denied.

“What would I gain from bribing a little child,” she asked. “I did not seek her out, she came forward and told me she saw my daughter and said she was still being kept against her will”. Sherriff is also accusing the `B’ Division police of dragging their feet on the case and are not investigating the matter. “As far as I know nobody was held or questioned for this matter, not the woman nor her two sons that the girl told me about they not investigating at all.”

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Guyana Chronicle, ‘B’ Division Commander Lindon Alves refuted the claims made by the mother and said the investigation is still very active. “Only as recent as Thursday, last, another team went into the Berbice River and Canje Creek, raiding several camps in search for the missing girl.

We are not giving up despite going in blind and not having a specific location in which we should focus the search on.” He further stated that the teen has given conflicting reports after a confrontation was held with her, along with her parents and the woman she had previously accused of abducting her. Despite this, he said the polic