A 9-year-old Ukrainian refugee who vanished on her way to school in Germany earlier this month has been found slain, local police said Wednesday.
“We are certain that the deceased is the missing 9-year-old Valeriia… Valeriia was the victim of a crime. We are investigating murder,” Saxony Police President Carsten Kaempf told reporters at a Wednesday press conference.
Her body was reportedly found in a wooded area not far from her home in the town of Döbeln, Saxony, hidden beneath undergrowth. Frantic search efforts involving hundreds of police officers had been launched for the girl after she never showed up for school on June 3, with the last reported sighting of her that morning on her way to class.
Police have said Valeriia’s body showed signs of violence, but Senior Public Prosecutor Ingrid Burghart said there was no evidence that she had been sexually assaulted.
A witness had told police two days after the girl vanished that she’d “heard screams” coming from the forest where Valeriia was later found, so investigators are said to be examining that area as the crime scene.
Valeriia, whose surname has not been disclosed by police, had moved to Germany with her mother after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but her father reportedly remained back home serving in the Ukrainian military.
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