(Trinidad Express) Five hundred and fifty-nine people have been reported missing to the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) in 2024.
The majority of them have been accounted for.
But 149 individuals are still missing according to police data up to November 13.
In all of 2023, 118 people reported missing in Trinidad and Tobago were never found.
There were 689 missing person reports made to police that year.
In 2022, 120 people remained unaccounted for after 681 people were reported missing.
These figures were provided to the Sunday Express by the Crime and Problem Analysis Branch (CAPA) of the TTPS.
The CAPA data recorded statistics from ten police divisions, as well as the age categories of the number of people reported missing and those who were found alive or confirmed dead.
On average the data suggests that close to 700 people are reported missing yearly and about 120 remained unaccounted for each of the two completed years, 2022 and 2023.
Further examination of the data found that during the period 2022 to November 13, 2024, the Port of Spain police division had 167 reports of missing people.
This was higher than Tobago (63), North Central (139) and Western division (164).
On the other hand, Port of Spain police division also had the highest number of individuals who remained unaccounted for during the same period with 65 persons whose whereabouts are yet to be determined.
Second was the Southern and Central divisions with 47 persons still unaccounted for in both districts.
In all age categories throughout the ten police divisions, adults between 19 to 60 were the highest number of people who remained unaccounted for during the three-year period with 161 missing.
Teenagers between 13 to 18 were second at 159.
In a telephone interview head of the Hunters Search and Rescue Team Vallence Rambharat said his organisation also kept records.
He explained that his data differed slightly from the TTPS.
He pointed out that his organisation did not keep records by police divisions or districts and one of his age groups ran from 18 to 50 as opposed to the TTPS statistics that went from 19 to 60.
Other notable differences were the Hunters Search and Rescue Team’s collection of data by gender.
Rambharat pointed out that the TTPS would have more reports than his organisation because the TTPS would also collect information where people were reported missing but were found on the same day or within a few hours.
In speaking about the age group that was most worrying to his team when they were reported missing, Rambharat emphasised that it was adults between 19 to 60.
He said that age bracket often influenced the larger search teams.
“That is the group where you find may have been murdered. Then you have to take into consideration those who would have died by suicide and were not found. Also, those who have died from natural causes and were never found,” Rambharat said.
In that age group there were also those who were lost at sea such as fishermen whose bodies were never recovered.
He stressed that some people who died by suicide also went through great extremes not to be found.
He recalled that his team had found two men who ended their lives after venturing into a forest.
“If was not for us those bodies would never have been found,” he said.
The team found another man this year in similar circumstances, he said.
Asked if he believed human trafficking had played a part in the disappearance of anyone in Trinidad and Tobago over the three-year period, Rambharat replied that in all the cases they had investigated, it was never a thought to classify a case as such.
