She helps refugees find their families

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They are looking for their son, their husband, their brother. More than 55,000 people are currently trying to find their relatives through the Red Cross and Red Crescent. They are torn apart on the flight to Europe, or they can no longer reach the family member because their mobile phone has been taken away. Your last hope is that a loved one sees your photo online or on a poster in a Red Cross or Red Crescent office and contacts you.

The aid organization has been offering the Trace the Face online service for refugees for ten years. It is also an important resource for Nicole Windlin (46) and her team. She is the head of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK) tracing service, which helps people find relatives.

Watch more young people

Windlin says there has been an increase in the number of young people reaching out to them recently. Last year, the investigation service supported nearly 1,300 people in their search for relatives. Many were child refugees, the majority from Afghanistan.

There is a high demand for help finding relatives. “Unfortunately, we currently have very long wait times,” says Windlin.

Hafizullah* (17) from Afghanistan also had to be patient. He applied for asylum in Switzerland at the beginning of this year and is looking for his brother (15). They ran in different directions when they heard screams and gunshots near the Iran-Turkish border. Since then there has been no trace of the brother.

Divorced on the run

Like Hafizullah, most young refugees flee with relatives but get lost. In a conversation with the refugees, Windlin and her team first try to get as much information as possible – and give the person tips on how to search for their family themselves.

Hafizullah also took the opportunity to publish a picture of herself on the website “Trace the Face”. Employees of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Movement can also search for a specific person. But that is often difficult. The waiting lists for information requests from the authorities are very long in Turkey, Windlin explains. “And in Iran no search is possible due to the current political security situation.”

Partly due to these kinds of problems, the success rate of the search service is not high. Nearly 300 people – about every eighth person – were able to find their families by 2022. In the case of Hafizullah, they have not yet succeeded.

* Name changed

Source:Blick