Mom and daughter, 6, vanish without trace

Eastern Cape police are searching for Port Elizabeth-based Sharlene Corbett, 24, who went missing early this year, along with her six-year-old daughter.

They visited Corbett’s father in Komani in November and spent a few months there before they packed their bags and left.

They have not been seen since.

Police spokesperson Col Priscilla Naidu said a missing person’s inquiry has been opened.

Naidu said any case of a missing person should be reported to the police. “There is no waiting period to report a missing person. An immediate response can save a life.”

The disappearance was reported to Port Elizabeth police in March.

Scores of people go missing in SA every day. Adults and children are being posted in Missing Children SA and on the SA Police Services website daily as they are being reported by their relatives.

Some are found dead, others are never found for years. Between January 2000 and December 2015, according to a report by Marcel van der Watt and Monique Emser, Still not Found, Missing Children in SA, released in 2019, about 16,000 children were reported missing and 25% of these children have never been found.

This does not include the number of cases that are not reported to authorities. The main reasons for these disappearances are crime, runaways, kidnapping, human trafficking, mental difficulties and being lost.

Both the SAPS website and the Missing Children Facebook page list thousands of missing people with brief profiles and pictures. Some of the reports are of infants who have been kidnapped.

Scores of people go missing in SA every day. Adults and children are being posted in Missing Children SA and on the SAPS website daily as they are being reported by their relatives