Tel Aviv mother missing after son’s mysterious death
More than 100 police officers and volunteers continued to search for Sivan Laviah on Saturday night after the mother went missing in the morning. Laviah’s son died last week from apparent smoke inhalation when he fell asleep while helping his mother clean their burned apartment, which had caught fire on Tuesday.
Levi, 46, left the Tel Aviv suburb of Givatayim in the morning and since disappeared, police said. She was wearing gray slacks, a brown shirt and red sneakers. Police and volunteers searched throughout the Tel Aviv area.
A command center was established in the Yiftach subdistrict police station to coordinate the search. The police asks anyone with information on Laviah’s whereabouts to call (03) 630-4444 or the general police emergency number 100.
The mother and her 12-yearold son were both lightly injured when a table in their apartment in south Tel Aviv caught on fire on Tuesday, according to Channel 2. Two days later they returned to the apartment to clean it, during which they both fell asleep. The boy’s grandmother summoned paramedics after she tried to contact Laviah with no success. Medical responders arrived at the scene and pronounced the boy dead.
Police told Laviah’s family to stay with her during the difficult period after the boy’s death and the women went to sleep in the grandmother’s home, but at 7 in the morning she found Laviah’s room empty.
While thousands of missing persons reports are filed with the police every year, around 60% of cases are solved in the first 24 to 48 hours. But if the missing person is not found within two days, the chance of finding him or her drops significantly.