The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has urged the Ghanaian media not to take their eyes off the case involving the three kidnapped girls in Takoradi.

The Commission wants the media to consistently liaise with affected families and government agencies to ensure that the missing girls are reunited with their families.

Head of Institution and Civil Development at the ICMP, Dr Deborah Ruiz Verduzco told Joy News’ Richard Kwadwo Nyarko during a tour of Africa journalists to The Hague that, the media have a crucial role to play in helping to find the missing girls and must not give up.

“The media should work together with the agencies as a strategy. Sometimes discretion is necessary to protect investigations and visibility from the media can help to create awareness and political will and contribute to an overall strategy,” she said.

Dr Verduzco called on government to intensify the search for the missing girls as “it is the obligation of the State to search for a human being who has gone missing.”

She added that “everyone has the right to an effective investigation and the State must put in effort to find the whereabouts of that missing person.

The missings girls from (L) Priscilla Blessing Bentum, Ruth Love Quayson and Priscilla Manteboa Koranchie

“We cannot move forward as a nation and build peace and development if you have a portion of your population –as small as it may be – without answers and without the assurances that the State has done the most it can to find a missing person,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Police say they have discovered the whereabouts of three girls kidnapped last year at Takoradi and are closer to bringing them home.

“We know where the girls are,” the Director-General of the Criminal Investigations Department, DCOP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah told reporters Tuesday during a press conference.

It has been over 200 days since Priscilla Blessing Bentum, the first of the three females believed to have been kidnapped in Takoradi disappeared.

The second, Ruth Love Quayson has been gone for over 120 days whilst the third, Priscilla Mantebea Koranchie has been missing for over 100 days.