CREMONA – A dramatic increase in complaints, almost one every two days; but above all a worrying increase in those who have literally vanished into thin air: in 2023, from Cremona and its province 69 people disappeared. Never found again, despite appeals and searches. However, 84 were found alive. This is stated in the latest report from the Government Commissioner for Missing Persons, Maria Luisa Pellizzariwhich already last June had highlighted the growing data throughout Lombardy. A surge that certainly did not stop in the second half of the year, reaching 3,300 complaints collected in the region and 1,166 people still to be found.
Cremona is in eighth place for complaints and sixth for people yet to be found. For a total of 153 complaints, that is, 62.7% more than in 2022 when there were 94. Compared to 2021 the increase is even 98.7% because there were 77 complaints. Finally, considering the period from 1975 to 2020 when the average disappearance reports were 28 per year, it turns out that in Cremona and its province there was an even +446%.
To understand the reasons for the phenomenon it is necessary to better describe the people whose traces have been lost, whether by their will or not: 69.5% of the missing are male, while the foreign-Italian ratio is almost equal with a very slight predominance of foreign nationals (50.4%). What certainly arouses interest is the age of the disappeared: 67.4% are under eighteen years old, while 27.2% are between 18 and 65, only 5.45% are over 65 years old. The phenomenon of missing minors mainly concerns foreigners and is mostly attributable to returns to their homeland without the will of both parents. The majority of complaints concern Tunisian nationality, followed by Egyptian nationality. Then there are minors from Guinea, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Morocco and Sudan.
During the presentation of the report Pellizzari placed emphasis on the phenomenon of repeated disappearances (i.e. multiple reports for the same person), minors and people with cognitive impairment. Also illustrated is the new reporting model and the nomenclatures adopted in relation to the reasons, the operational protocols for the timely genetic sampling of missing persons and unnamed corpses. On this last point, Lombardy was taken as a model: «On 28 September 2023, the memorandum of understanding was signed between the Government’s Extraordinary Commissioner for Missing Persons – it is underlined in the report -, the President of the Lombardy Region, the prefects, the general prosecutors at the Court of Appeal of Milan and Brescia, the prosecutors of Milan, Bergamo, Brescia, Busto Arsizio, Cremona, Como, Lecco, Lodi, Mantua, Monza, Pavia, Sondrio and Varese, the University of of Milan, Lab An Of Institute, Municipality of Milan and Anci Lombardia”.
It is therefore specified that this protocol arises from the need to start a collaborative experimentation in order to promote and develop actions, projects and initiatives regarding the registry of bodies without identity with the aim that they can remain without external examination and autopsy and be buried without the preventive biological sample. The protocol also provides for operational regulations with univocal methods in the event of deaths in emergency rooms, hospitals, nursing homes and in all cases of discovery of unidentified bodies.
