Maxim Markhalyuk from the agricultural town of Novy Dvor, Svisloch region, disappeared a month ago, on September 16. On October 10, the boy turned 11 years old. They are still looking for him.
“The search will continue until a criminal case is opened. To close a criminal case, certain grounds are needed, which now do not exist,” Konstantin Shalkevich, head of the information and public relations department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, told Naviny.by.
According to him, additional surveys are being conducted on site and information exchange is underway.
The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case into the unknown disappearance of Maxim Markhaluk - in accordance with paragraph 2 of Art. 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code (10 days after the disappearance).
The boy is on the international wanted list - Interpol is also looking for him. As Konstantin Shalkevich noted, when information about a missing person is posted in the Interpol bank, the information is communicated to employees who, by line of work, search for missing people.
“Mechanism for disseminating information, ways and methods of working foreign colleagues the same as ours,” said the head of the information and public relations department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
- You pass by Maxim’s mother, she’s at work, you don’t want to say or ask anything. There is nothing to say, and nothing to ask. If she had any information, everyone would already know. So what do you say? It’s simply impossible to stir things up again. After all, every time she again experiences the tragedy. It is clear that the man is thin and exhausted - it is impossible to watch without pain and tears. Remember when there was information about the Polish trace? So she straight up perked up when they said it. And now... Now she has this condition again...
In the largest in the history of the country search operation aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles were used aircrafts, attended by professionals and volunteers.
On some days, more than two thousand people were involved in the search for the boy, Sergei Kovgan, commander of the “Angel” search and rescue squad, told Naviny.by.
“Everything possible has been done on the spot. There are still places that no one can technically survey - swamps. We combed everything we could, several times, but there is no information about the boy’s whereabouts,” Kovgan noted.
There is an algorithm for the search and rescue operation, specialists know what and how to do, Sergei Kovgan emphasized: “The search for the boy has not been stopped, it continues by the Angel squad by informing everyone possible ways. So we do everything that depends on us. And the law enforcement agencies are engaged in operational investigative activities.”
Currently, the Angel squad is looking for more than 54 children, all of them disappeared before Maxim Markhaluk.
This year alone, Angel has helped find dozens of people and thousands over five years of work. However, this public initiative rests only on the enthusiasm of people “who, out of a spiritual impulse, are ready to spend energy and time in the name of finding other people.”
Search for the missing person Belovezhskaya Pushcha schoolchild Maxim Markhalyuk have not stopped for more than a month.
Maxim Markhalyuk left his home in the village of Novy Dvor (Svisloch district) on the evening of September 16. Since then, nothing has been known about the boy's whereabouts.
“At the moment, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, together with dog handlers and a special forces detachment, are searching for Maxim. Despite everything, we are not losing hope that the boy will be found,” the Grodno search and rescue team “TsentrSpas” told Sputnik.
Members of the squad, according to representatives of TsentrSpas, always hope that the missing will be found sooner or later. Meanwhile, 40 days have already passed since Markhaluk disappeared.
The whole country continues to follow the search for Maxim. At the height of the search efforts, more than a thousand people from all over the country came to the village of Novy Dvor - volunteers of the search teams “Angel”, “TsentrSpas” and others wanted to help the police and the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
Ten days after the boy went missing, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case. Law enforcement agencies are pursuing all possible versions of Maxim’s disappearance, but the situation with the child’s disappearance has not yet become clearer.
In Novy Dvor itself, when Maxim’s name is mentioned, they just shrug and sigh. On October 10, the boy had a birthday - he turned 11 years old. Fellow villagers hoped that they would find Maxim by his birthday, but the child is still missing.
- Absolutely no news. Nobody tells us anything. The Investigative Committee works and doesn’t share anything with us,” says Alla Goncharevich, director of the school where Maxim’s mother works. “If my parents knew anything, we would know too.” And so... Absolutely nothing. We don't give up hope. In fact, there is no child.
But you never know, there are all sorts of fantastic cases. This is not a standard situation. In a simple situation, we had to find him right away at night, or even on Sunday. Well, maximum on the third day. The situation is simply unusual. There have already been such searches that it is impossible to come up with, even think of something. All guesses are already at the level of fantasy. From the experience of books, films and life. Coming up with something new is very difficult.
According to Alla Ivanovna, of course, the mother worries most about her son.
- You pass by Maxim’s mother, she’s at work, you don’t want to say or ask anything. There is nothing to say, and nothing to ask. If she had any information, everyone would already know. So what do you say? It’s simply impossible to stir things up again.
After all, every time she again experiences the tragedy. It is clear that the man is thin and exhausted - it is impossible to watch without pain and tears. Remember when there was information about the Polish trace? So she straight up perked up when they said it. And now... Now she has this condition again...
Valentina herself doesn’t really want to talk to journalists.
“What can I say if there is no information,” she explains in a quiet, exhausted voice. - I call, but there is no information...
Advertising10 psychics were involved in the search for 10-year-old Maxim Markhaluk, who disappeared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. Police Lieutenant Colonel Georgy Evchar, deputy head of the department, head of the department for interaction with electronic media of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, announced this in the talk show “Our Life” on the ONT TV channel.
The Investigative Committee of Belarus reported this and said that information about the child has already been transferred to Interpol, the website Readweb.org reports. They will be open by specialists in 99% of the world's countries. And if the child really ended up abroad, then this will help speed up his search. Data about the child, if his whereabouts are established abroad, will quickly reach Belarusian law enforcement agencies.
Has Maxim Markhalyuk been found in Belovezhskaya Pushcha: Investigative authorities are pursuing various versions of the student’s disappearance
Maxim Markhalyuk, a resident of the village of Novy Dvor, Svisloch district, disappeared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha on September 16. 10 days later, on the fact of his disappearance, the investigative authorities opened a criminal case in accordance with paragraph 2 of Art. 167 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Among the versions of the child's disappearance are running away from home and abduction.
The largest search operation in the history of the country involves professionals and volunteers. On some days, about two thousand people were involved. Aviation and unmanned aerial vehicles were used.
The Podlasie website podlasie24.pl reported that the police in the city of Siedlce, halfway from Brest to Warsaw, are checking a report about an unknown boy who, on the 20th of September, hid in a trucker’s truck, did not tell anything about himself and ran away from the car in the village of Belki . The guy in question matches the description of Maxim Markhaluk, who has been searched for in Belovezhskaya Pushcha since September 16th.
It is believed that the boy climbed into the cabin of a car in a parking lot in the Lubortov district of the Lublin Voivodeship. From Novy Dvor to Lyubortov it is about 250 km by car or about 195 km directly.
The police in Siedlce refused to allow Svabodze official comments and advised to contact the police in Belarus, who are searching for the missing guy.
The official representative of the Investigative Committee for the Grodno Region, Sergei Shershenevich, told the Svaboda correspondent that the Polish side did not transmit any information regarding the missing Maxim Markhaluk.
The Investigative Committee for the Grodno Region noted that immediately after the boy’s mother reported her son missing, investigators from the Svisloch district department of the committee, police officers and experts arrived at the scene.
The official representative of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Belarus, Vitaly Novitsky, described the situation with the search for Maxim on his Facebook.
In 2017, the Ministry of Emergency Situations participated in the search for 26 lost children. 25 of them were found, one was not. In 2017, the Ministry of Emergency Situations participated in the search for 302 lost adults, 288 of them were found, 14 were not.
Why is this case special? Most children and adults are within the first 24 hours. Here is the news about a woman who spent three days in the forest. My colleagues noticed her from a helicopter of the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The boy has not been found.
Work began the same night the message was received. Confirmation of this is the news on our website that in one day we went out searching 17 times (age - operational data, which was later corrected).
Why weren’t thousands of people on the spot right away? The algorithm of any search is to build up forces and resources in the absence of results. In no country in the world have I encountered situations where, 12 hours after a child goes missing in the forest, thousands of people are combing the area, and the sky is filled with drones and helicopters. Our first board began work despite the dangerous weather, when it became clear that the search for specialists on the ground in the near radius and interviews with relatives and village residents did not bring results.
So why hasn't the boy been found? Experts and “experts” are trying to answer this question. I can't imagine what else rescuers and volunteers should do in the context of forest searches. Everything has been worked out. Key places - twice: by the police or the Ministry of Emergency Situations and by volunteers.
During the search, people discussed various versions of what happened, including the fantastic (abducted by aliens). But these five options were most often heard.
Version 1
Maxim went into the forest, the bison scared him, and he began to run away. And when he realized that he was lost and weak, he hid somewhere in a shelter. They simply missed him while combing the forest.
Version 2
The boy fell into some well or fell into a hole. Due to his weakness, he cannot call for help, so he was again missed during the search.
Version 3
Maxim disappeared in the swamp. Literally two kilometers from Novy Dvor, if you move south, quite large swamps begin. The depth of the swamp can reach two meters.
Version 4
The schoolboy is not in the forest. He ran away from home and is hiding from his parents. True, the parents said that they had no conflicts with Maxim.
Version 5
The boy was kidnapped and taken away. Perhaps even beyond the borders of Belarus.
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How are some of the most large-scale searches Maxim, who disappeared in the Pushcha.
10-year-old Maxim Markhalyuk disappeared last Saturday. It was already the eighth day since he went into the forest. All week, volunteers, rescuers, police officers and military personnel combed Belovezhskaya Pushcha, near which the agricultural town of Novy Dvor is located. And volunteers, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the police unanimously say: not a single old-timer remembers such a large-scale search. However, there is still no news yet.
Eight in the morning. Not far from the medical yard of the local agricultural complex there are tents of military and rescue workers. There is smoke coming from the field kitchen. There are also two large helicopters and one drone from the Academy of Sciences, which was supposed to fly out yesterday to search for Maxim. Also, as reported by the Internal Affairs Directorate, they were supposed to search for the boy at night with a thermal imager.
The results of these searches are not yet known. At 10:00 the headquarters meeting began. By 11 o'clock, the chief of staff, deputy chief of the Internal Affairs Directorate, Alexander Shastaylo, will announce the action plan and details of the operation that took place last night.
Today it is planned to participate 40 people from the regional Ministry of Emergency Situations (Grodno), 34 from Volkovysk Regional Emergency Situations, 34 from Svisloch and 21 from the detachment special purpose, - Natalya Zhivolevskaya, press secretary of the Grodno EMERCOM, told Onliner.by. - I want to emphasize that they all take part in the search in their free time from duty. And they volunteered to participate in the search of their own free will.
Another camp, already for volunteers, was located at the stadium of a local school. There are dozens of cars and hundreds of people here. In the center is the headquarters of the rescue teams "Angel" and "TsentroSpas".
There are significantly more people here than yesterday. By nine in the morning, more than a thousand people had already arrived from all over the country. And they keep coming. Many people take their dogs with them.
We came from Molodechno. There were three cars of us, five people each. We don’t know each other at all, we just decided: “We need to go.” And they wrote off on VKontakte,” says Svetlana, who is participating in the search for the first time. “We left even earlier than four in the morning in order to be there by eight.” We are all mothers and fathers, we believe that if something happens to our children, God forbid, then people will also come to our aid.
We are also from Molodechno. We spent the night here and are now ready to search, says Maxim, Valery, Olga, Igor and Sergey. The guys periodically help “Angel” in the search and are going to stay until tomorrow if Maxim is not found today.
Most likely, he was afraid of wild animals and ran away and is now wandering somewhere in the forest, the young people are optimistic. - In any case, we believe in the best.
The guys from the Brest motorcycle club arrived on ATVs. They say it’s much easier to search this way: there are a lot of fallen trees in the forest.
I was released from work yesterday. They treated us with understanding,” says the strong Sergei. According to him, the passages in the forest are difficult: there is a lot of windfall. “It’s easier for men, guys can walk 30 kilometers, women - 15 kilometers.” We walked in a chain, there was a lot of windfall, a lot of rubble, while you looked at everything, of course, the girls lagged behind, says Sergei.
We hope that today’s search will definitely bring results,” adds his comrade Victor. - Today there are many more people, we think the search radius will expand.
Yura, Tanya, Oksana, Svetlana also took four hours to get to Novy Dvor from Minsk. They say they couldn’t sit at home, knowing that they needed help.
I have a brother at home of the same age, we are also 11 years apart, like this boy and his older brother. As soon as I think that he could have gotten lost, I get goosebumps,” explains Oksana.
“We simply couldn’t sit at home, knowing that Maxim was alone there in the forest,” the guys say. - There were a lot of people traveling. Those who could not travel, they handed over parcels. We carried medicines, food, and stationery. A lot of people donated money. Trouble leaves no one indifferent.
On weekdays we couldn’t get away, we worked,” say the guys from Baranovichi. “And at night only specially trained people went into the forest; volunteers were not allowed in.” So as soon as it became clear that we needed help over the weekend, we came right away. Local residents who have been looking for Maxim for a week cannot talk about what happened without tears.
Oh, if only he could be found today, I can’t talk, sorry,” the tear-stained woman in a red jacket turns away.
We are all worried about him. “We didn’t even see him that day, only one of us saw him,” the fifth-graders at school say, vying with each other.
At headquarters, Angel coordinators are discussing how to distribute people. Not without raised tones. Many people are worried and trying to give each other good advice.
Separately, field kitchen volunteers sort food and prepare tea to feed the children.
On the other side, the Red Cross pitched their tents. There is also water, food and all the information about the missing Maxim.
Internal Affairs Directorate: “If we don’t find the boy in 10 days, we will initiate a criminal case”
After 12:00, we were still able to catch the head of the search headquarters, Maxim Markhaluk, and the deputy head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee, Alexander Shastailo. He told the details of yesterday's search operation.
As for reconnaissance with thermal imagers, last night experts identified several hot spots. This morning, forces including the republican special forces detachment of the Ministry of Emergency Situations checked these points. They did not give any information about the missing person,” said Alexander Shastaylo.
At the moment, in the territory where, according to preliminary data, the missing person may be located, searches are being carried out by law enforcement agencies, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the military, regional authorities, and organizations. Also today, a sufficient number of volunteers arrived.
Are there any clues or traces?
We are even returning to those places that were examined earlier, now the territory is quite well-trodden, there are many traces,” noted the chief of staff. - If the traces are of interest, the information is sent to headquarters. A mobile group arrives at this location and inspects in detail the area where traces were found, and the information is transmitted to headquarters. At the moment, all the information received has been checked - there is no result. We are working on various versions, but the main working version is the version that the boy got lost in the forest.
Are there any other options being considered besides forests?
A swampy area is being considered. Just today information was received about a wetland area where abandoned buildings are located. A mobile group went there, we dropped it off from a helicopter, and specialists checked this area.
Is there some kind of criminal version being worked out? Maybe the boy was kidnapped or ran away?
These leads are being followed up by law enforcement officials. In accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Belarus, 10 days after filing an application with the internal affairs bodies, all information is transferred to the Investigative Committee. And he is already initiating a criminal case.
Are there any search standards? After how many days do the searches stop?
There is no established standard as such. The search will continue regardless of the result that is obtained and will be obtained in the future. Perhaps not such forces will be involved, but operational search activities will be carried out. The statute of limitations for such cases is significant.
Ministry of Emergency Situations and volunteers: we comb the territory within the radius where a person could have reached, we even look 100 kilometers away
During the day, the Ministry of Emergency Situations has a task for aviation - to work out points. The idea is simple: the drone flies, and the thermal imager detects “warm objects.” After some time, the drone returns to its place again. And if it fixes the point again, then a special mobile group is sent there to search the area, including hard-to-reach areas such as islands in swamps and so on.
This work is still underway,” the Ministry of Emergency Situations emphasized. - We choose the radius based on how many people can walk during this time. Yes, we also take 100 kilometers for insurance.
The second task is the coordination of volunteers. More than once or twice in the groups of the search and rescue team they said that there are a lot of people, but there are not enough coordinators.
Today at about 10 a.m. the volunteers were divided into small groups of 30-40 people. Coordinators - foresters and employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations - were sent along with them. By the way, the latter employs about 140 people; these are rescuers not only from the Grodno region, but also from the Brest region. The guys lined up in a chain and went to comb the forest.
Pay attention to any caches, hiding places, holes,” the curators explain to the volunteers. - If you are behind or are faced with hard to reach place, pass it on to the curator, and he stops the entire chain. It's clear?
Yes, say the volunteers and move into the forest: a chain 500 meters long, as a rule, goes through a depth of 3 kilometers. The second group is moving towards her. And so on all day until dark.
It takes from 30 minutes to an hour to walk three kilometers through a forest thicket - it all depends on the difficulty of the passage and the windfall. It’s warm and damp in the forest, people have sprayed themselves with anti-tick sprays, wrapped cellophane around their feet from boots and above the knee, and are protecting themselves with gloves.
Someone leaves for the base: other guys come to replace them. The ages are completely different: from high school students who say “stop” when they hear any rustle, to strong men of pre-retirement age.
“We didn’t find anything,” the guys from the group that was combing the forest along the road between Porozovo and the agricultural town of Novy Dvor say upsetly. “Don’t give up!” - the latter encourage. - We'll look further.
It’s incredible that so many people gathered from all over the country, say those who arrived. - There are guys from Mogilev, Bobruisk, Soligorsk, Vitebsk. Concerned people responded from all over the country. Such mutual support brings tears to my eyes.
By the way, Maxim’s parents do not want to communicate with journalists, just like his brother Alexander. As they explained in the village, “because of one very annoying journalist who covers a crime topic.”
The girl tried to literally crawl into the house and ask her parents questions, said director Novodvorskaya high school Alla Goncharevich. - Now the parents have decided not to communicate with the press.
Added. Law enforcement officers: “Disinformation has been spread more than once”
At about 3 p.m., volunteers came across some things. They were handed over to Maxim’s parents, but the things turned out to be not his, representatives of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee told Onliner.by. Neither volunteers nor aviation found any more clues.
As of 20:00 on September 23, 2017, the boy was not found. Volunteers are currently looking for overnight accommodation in the agricultural town; many will spend the night in tents. They can continue their search tomorrow.
At 21:24, summary information on the results of today appeared on the website of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee. Law enforcement officers summarize: a week of searches did not yield any results.
Today, the already combed areas were once again worked out. Large forces have been deployed to check all the pits that are located near the village, reports the press service of the Internal Affairs Directorate. - Deputy Head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee Alexander Shastailo noted that today law enforcement officers once again went around all the houses in the village, checked attics and wells, and housing and communal services employees also checked sewer hatches, in order to exclude the possibility of a child getting there.
It's nice to see how these types of events can bring people together. More than two thousand people came to search for Maxim from neighboring regions, the Internal Affairs Directorate noted. - Volunteers, the Red Cross, employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, despite the weekend, came to provide assistance. And some who could not come are helping financially; a lot of food, water and essential goods have been brought for the volunteers. All this was received from concerned citizens.
According to law enforcement officers, they are pursuing all possible leads and checking any information received at headquarters.
Once again I would like to draw attention to the problem of spreading false information,” warns the Internal Affairs Directorate. - On some resources they found news where condolences were expressed to the parents, since the boy was found dead in a noose. There was also news that he was seen by the Ministry of Emergency Situations while flying in a helicopter, and he escaped from them.
This information is not true. Each of those people who are there makes every effort to find Maxim. This kind of information can undermine morale people who work their butts off. And it’s scary to imagine how parents and relatives will feel after reading this kind of misinformation.
The search for the missing Maxim Markhaluk continues.
The search for Maxim Markhlyuk, who disappeared on Saturday, September 16, continues in Belovezhskaya Pushcha. All the days after the boy’s disappearance, volunteers came to the village of Novy Dvor in the Grodno region who wanted to help. A week after his disappearance, a general gathering of all search and rescue teams of Belarus was announced. They staged the largest search operation in the country. But the child has still not been found.
On Saturday, September 23, more than two thousand people took part in the search for the child. In the small and previously quiet Novy Dvor, headquarters were set up, aircraft appeared, and field kitchens began operating, says TUT.BY.
In the morning, the stadium near the local school is crowded and noisy. It's cold and damp outside - it rained at night. People in bright vests are not yet lining up in lines in a very organized manner. The volunteers were divided into groups. Each has its own area, which needs to be combed again today. By this time, the area around the village had already been examined several times.
In addition to volunteers, helicopters from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, which periodically fly over the forest, are taking part in the search.
Volunteers wait patiently. All the talk here, of course, is about the missing boy and the technological side of the search. Volunteers tell how they walked through a wet forest, how they came to a swamp and got wet through and through.
“We barely warmed up in the evening,” the girls say near the makeshift kitchen.
Despite the fact that the general gathering was scheduled for 9 am, an hour and a half later the stadium was still crowded. The groups are still waiting for commands to enter the forest.
You see, it is very difficult to organize such a number of people. Such a search operation has never been carried out in Belarus,” explains the girl who registers the volunteers.
According to her, as of Saturday morning there were already more than 600 people on the lists. By lunchtime, this figure had risen to a thousand.
And people keep coming and going,” she says.
The main thing at the stadium is Christina Kruk. She clearly issues commands and constantly keeps in touch with the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the police.
X1, X2, X3. Where did you go? Do you know where to go? Do you have walkie-talkies? No? Now we’ll find it,” the coordinator tries to divide the volunteers into groups.
Christina is a forest search coordinator. She has undergone special training and knows how to organize everything here and not get confused in all the groups,” says the commander of the “Angel” search and rescue squad. Sergey Kovgan.
Christina, meanwhile, begins sending groups into the forest. Rescuers, police officers and foresters are leaving with volunteers to search.
Representatives of forestry, police or the Ministry of Emergency Situations have been added to these groups for coordination and communication with headquarters. At the moment they are in the forest. People are arriving, the number of participants is constantly increasing,” says the first deputy head of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Grodno Regional Executive Committee, police colonel Alexander Shastaylo.
The military is also participating in the search. In the afternoon, several army buses arrived in Novy Dvor. In general, what is happening in this village is new not only for volunteers, but also for the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the police: such search and rescue operations have never happened in Belarus.
Of course, everything is probably not going quite as we would like. We arrived last night, they didn’t let us search at night, and now we’re standing near the forest, and we still can’t go there: we’re waiting for instructions from headquarters, but there’s still no sign of them. Maybe they would have found him already,” one of the volunteers languishes in anticipation. Hope.
The woman came from Pruzhany. She tells how in the evening, in order to do something, she couldn’t stand it and drove a car through abandoned farmsteads. But unauthorized searches ended in vain. She worries that, most likely, she will never take part in a full-scale search.
I need to go home soon. My child is waiting for me,” explains Nadezhda.
Volunteers stretched out for almost three and a half kilometers. The group, which includes the girl, stands on the outskirts of the forest. People have been stationed, but no one is allowed into the Pushcha yet. They get nervous, remain silent, and then begin to discuss what is happening.
There are kilometers of people here, look. It would be better to go into the forest rather than waste time - the daylight hours are short, but we won’t go into the forest without a command,” people say.
Many came here, succumbing to the first impulse - to help.
Some simply did not calculate their strength. Yesterday we came out of the forest and simply fell at the edge of the forest, barely reaching the stadium. The search is very difficult,” says one of the volunteers.
Another group, which they signed up for, leaves the stadium for the forest. Innu from Minsk. The girl has been participating in search operations with the Angel squad for a long time. I immediately came to search for Maxima.
You know, I was fired from my job because of the search. I didn’t have time to get to Minsk. She worked in logistics. I spoke with my superiors, warned and asked for understanding. She promised to work two shifts. At work, they knew about my volunteer activities and treated me with understanding, but in the end this happened,” says Inna and, as if reassuring either us or herself, adds that everything will be fine. - Now the main thing is the boy, and new job I'll definitely find it.
Among the volunteers there are many representatives of car clubs, whose members know how to navigate in the forest.
Dima has been here for four days now, and we only arrived yesterday. We spent the night with locals, he says Alyona.
The girl brought two dogs with her; there was simply no one to leave them with at home. Not only are these dogs not search dogs, but at this stage it is already pointless to involve them in the operation. The fact is that during this time a lot of people have been in the forest, and it is unlikely that the animals will pick up the trail.
Many volunteers arrived in Novy Dvor a few days ago. Those who wish are accommodated for the night at the school, while others are “taken apart” by local residents. The bulk of the volunteers remain here for some time. They say until the boy is found.
Our hostess fed us breakfast and even heated the bathhouse. For which I thank her very much. In general, the locals are very friendly and understand what is happening. They come to the headquarters and ask how to help, but here everything is already organized,” the girls say in the makeshift kitchen right in the open air.
In just a few days, an impressive supply of food had accumulated here. They say that there is no need to carry food anymore, but rubber boots and there are not enough raincoats.
In fact, there are two field kitchens for volunteers in the town: one was organized by volunteers of the Angel search and rescue team, the other by the Red Cross.
Red Cross volunteers set up their camp near the village council building. Here they will also feed you hot food, provide first aid if necessary, and offer tea or coffee. Rescuers have their own field kitchen. The headquarters of government officials is located on the outskirts of the village. Large tents are deployed here, there is special equipment, helicopters and drones.
In the search, we use two of our drones, and one was provided to us by the Academy of Sciences, says the deputy head of the Grodno Department of Emergency Situations Sergey Leonov.- As for studying the area, we have worked out everything possible ways following a child of this age. We are combing (and not for the first time) all populated areas, roads and forests through which a person can pass. We analyze all traces found in the forest together with the police. Today we focused on two settlements, which are located near the New Dvor.
Currently, about 140 rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations are involved in the search; there are also two mobile groups that work at given coordinates and try to detect Maxim using a thermal imager. It helps to find a person where it is difficult to reach.
It looks like this: a mobile group flies to a certain point, rescuers examine the area, descend, study a certain area and then move on.
At lunchtime we received information that they had found a hut with the child’s belongings. The stadium is lively. But it turned out that what was found had nothing to do with the lost boy.
Maxim’s father and brother, along with everyone else, have been in the forest for the eighth day. Psychologists from the Ministry of Emergency Situations work with parents. Local residents also joined the ranks of volunteers.
Igor Sergeevich came from Svisloch with his comrades. He explains that he could not stay away, and the forest in the surrounding area at one time stretched far and wide.
You know, we are all very worried, all thoughts are only about the boy,” the man takes a long time to find his words because of his excitement. - We come here every day. Many took time off work to participate in the search. We just hope the boy is found.
In the afternoon, the stadium becomes quiet and unusually empty - everyone has gone in search of the child. Groups of volunteers emerge from the forest, as they say here, “in a checkerboard pattern.” In order not to create a crowd, each squad has certain time for lunch, after which they go back into the forest.
In the evening everyone returns to the stadium; night searches are prohibited. Unprepared people can get lost themselves, although here, as volunteers assure, there have been no such cases. True, there are already enough rumors about those who got lost during this search operation.
Well, one of our groups wandered around the forest. So there were 20 people there. Everyone left. So far, no one has been searched for except Maxim, the volunteers note.
Both volunteers and Emergency Situations Ministry employees say that the search and rescue operation will continue until any result is achieved.
Let us remind you that the boy disappeared in Belovezhskaya Pushcha last Saturday evening. At about 20.00 the boy rode his bicycle towards the forest near the village of Novy Dvor and disappeared. The police found the child's bicycle in the forest.
Ten-year-old Maxim. He disappeared a week ago. About two thousand people comb every meter of the forest day and night. The search was complicated by rain. There is also a version that Maxim could have been frightened by wild animals and ran away into the thicket, reports MIR 24 correspondent Evgenia Nazarova.
“I saw a herd of bison - we saw fresh tracks not far from the bicycle. This probably provoked a fright and he ran away somewhere, but in what direction (is unknown),” says Stepan Goncharevich, a participant in the search operation.
The search perimeter for the missing child has been expanded to 40 kilometers. They are checking the surroundings of the village of Novy Dvor, where in last time saw Maxim. We made a flyover using helicopters from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, but from the air it was very difficult to see the child in the dense forest.
“A lot of forest has been felled, very a large number of a windbreak where a child can hide. Therefore, we make the chains as tightly as possible in order to work out every square,” says the head of the Svisloch District Department of Internal Affairs, Valery Romanchuk.
In the search for Maxim, every minute counts. Rescuers say there is a chance of saving him. It is not yet very cold in the forest at night. Gave me another hope service dog, which followed the trail from the dirt road onto the asphalt. “It’s difficult, but we don’t give up. We all hope we find this boy.", says Denis Nechepa, an employee of the Berestovitsky District Department of Internal Affairs.
There are hundreds of such stories. 14-year-old Yana, when there was almost no hope left. Yana from the village of Chindat has already been nicknamed "Krasnoyarsk Mowgli". The schoolgirl spent a whole week in the impassable taiga. Together with my mother and sisters I went into the forest to pick berries and got lost. We searched for a long time. They shouted and fired flares. Several times dogs followed Yana's trail. Rescuers found the beds where the girl was sleeping. However, Yana was not there - she was constantly moving, trying to get out of the taiga on her own.
“No one expected that she could go 15 kilometers away. And in the end we were lucky that she came out into a clearing and there were swamps and a river around. Rescuers walked along the river and shouted. She was already getting ready to sleep, but she heard them, responded, and they found her,” says Yuri Yakushev, deputy head of the regional headquarters of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Eight-year-old Kirill Petrukhin was luckier. His rescuers are much quicker, after three days of wandering through the forest. It's all because of the ice cream. The child went to a neighboring village to buy sweets and lost his way. “He drove towards the store. He was in the store. The sellers said that he bought ice cream and candy.", says Kirill Petrukhin’s brother Vladimir.
Rescuers, police and volunteers were involved in the search. First they found a broken bicycle, and not far away they found Kirill himself.