SAFAWI — The family of a boy who went missing six years ago have been asked by the Border Guard to help identify a body near a control tower east of Safawi town. Al-Saeed family was celebrating the engagement of their two sons when an officer knocked on their door and asked them to visit the local Border Guard headquarters as officers believed the remains could be of the family's missing son Hussein. Hussein's uncle Issa told Al-Sharq daily that the Border Guard officers found a skull and authorities reopened an investigation to try and identify the remains using forensic tests. He added: “We don't have any information about Hussein's whereabouts. He went missing six years ago. We're going to wait patiently for the test results." Meanwhile, Lt. Col. Ziyad Al-Ruqaiti, spokesman for Eastern Province police, said it was unlikely that the skull found recently was of Hussein's. “The forensic doctor who examined the remains said it was highly unlikely that they were human. However, the final results will be out in the next few days," he said. Six years ago during the summer, Hussein, who was 14 at the time, was playing on the beach with some of his friends. He and his friends then decided to go home riding their bicycles. They were racing and Hussein was falling behind. When his friends took another look to see if he had caught up with them, Hussein had vanished and only his bicycle was found. There were a number of farms in the area where Hussein went missing. An exhaustive search was launched by Hussein's family and the police but to no avail. Few weeks after Hussein's disappearance, his family received information from unknown sources saying that Hussein had been smuggled outside the country and he was in Jordan. After a while, the same sources said he was in Yemen. Although his family had offered rewards for anyone who could provide information about his whereabouts, he remains missing to this day. — SG
