For 33 years and three months, Pul­bassia Nanan has been long­ing to see her daugh­ter Oma Nanan- who van­ished with­out a trace.

On Oc­to­ber 3, 1991, 11-year-old Oma, a Form One stu­dent of Curepe Ju­nior Sec­ondary School, dis­ap­peared af­ter en­ter­ing a white pri­vate car in front of her Tal­paro Main Road, Brazil, home.

On that fate­ful morn­ing, Nanan did not walk Oma to their front gate to watch her on­ly daugh­ter and el­dest child take a taxi, as she was in the habit of do­ing.

“It was on­ly a month since Oma had start­ed her new school and it be­came cus­tom­ary for me to watch her safe­ly get in­to a taxi when­ev­er she was leav­ing home. That morn­ing, I didn’t do that.

“Some­times I does blame my­self for not walk­ing her to the gate so I could have seen the num­ber plate of the car that picked her up or even the dri­ver. I was a few sec­onds late,” Nanan re­called as her eyes filled up with tears.

To this day, Nanan lives with re­gret.

Nanan, now 81, was pre­oc­cu­pied in the kitchen that day at­tend­ing to her ten-year-old son who was prepar­ing for Com­mon En­trance when Oma left home.

As Oma stepped out of the yard she shout­ed “Mam­my, I get­ting a drop.”

Nanan raced to see in whose ve­hi­cle Oma had en­tered, but the 120 Y car sped off.

The car made one stop in San Raphael nev­er to be seen again.

That evening, when Oma did not re­turn home, fear, pan­ic and wor­ry gripped Nanan’s body.

“I just start­ed to bawl and cry out for Oma. I kept ask­ing God where meh child. I cried all night, un­able to sleep or eat. I couldn’t stop think­ing about what could have hap­pened to her. Where she was and who she was with. Or if she was safe. All kinds of things raced through my mind.”

Nanan said the dis­ap­pear­ance was her worst night­mare.

“It was a pain that could not es­cape my heart.”

In the days that fol­lowed, Nanan said the po­lice’s search for her daugh­ter came up emp­ty-hand­ed.

“They had no strong leads. It was a kid­nap­ping. We didn’t know if Oma was dead or alive. We got no strong clues or in­for­ma­tion…noth­ing, noth­ing. Her dis­ap­pear­ance is still a mys­tery be­cause we nev­er got a call for a ran­som. It left us puz­zled.”

The moth­er of two re­mem­bered ac­com­pa­ny­ing a team of in­ves­ti­ga­tors in Lopinot, San­gre Grande, Ma­yaro and to deep South to look for Oma af­ter they re­ceived in­for­ma­tion from anony­mous callers.

Many of the ar­eas the po­lice vis­it­ed, Nanan said, turned out to be “a wild goose chase. They were just go­ing around in cir­cles. There was noth­ing con­crete to fol­low up on.”

Nanan al­so went to spir­i­tu­al peo­ple and psy­chics to track down her daugh­ter.

One pun­dit said she was alive.

An­oth­er be­lieved her life had been tak­en.

Oma’s dis­ap­pear­ance al­so brought is­sues of hu­man traf­fick­ing to the fore.

“They were say­ing dif­fer­ent things. I didn’t know what to be­lieve.”

In the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty, the fam­i­ly al­so held night­ly prayer ses­sions with vil­lagers, neigh­bours and rel­a­tives, hop­ing for the girl’s safe re­turn.

“I just kept pray­ing for God to give me some an­swers. Even if we had found her body at least that would have been some kind of clo­sure. Your mind would have been at ease. Every­thing was at a stand­still.”

Closed case

Af­ter sev­en years of search­ing with­out suc­cess, the po­lice even­tu­al­ly closed Oma’s case.

“That hit me like a tonne of bricks. I had to con­sole my­self. If any­one know any­thing, please come for­ward and say some­thing.”

Nanan said every time a child goes miss­ing, it brings back mem­o­ries of Oma.

“I does just think how their par­ents must be feel­ing. It does throw me back in time be­cause I had that same feel­ing. When I see and hear about these miss­ing chil­dren I does cry. It’s just too much.”

Long ago, Nanan said miss­ing chil­dren were few and far be­tween.

“Now it’s hap­pen­ing so fre­quent­ly.”

Nanan said Oma’s van­ish­ing changed their fam­i­ly’s life for­ev­er.

A decade af­ter Oma went miss­ing, Nanan said her hus­band died of di­a­betes.

She ad­mit­ted that Oma’s dis­ap­pear­ance both­ered her fa­ther to no end.

Oma’s younger broth­er avoids talk­ing about the in­ci­dent.

“But I have not giv­en up hope of find­ing my daugh­ter. To tell you the truth God knows every­thing and he is the one to bring jus­tice. Yes, it does still hurt me but I have to move on.”

What Nanan missed the most about Oma was her cheer­ful per­son­al­i­ty and big heart.

“She was al­ways a hap­py per­son and of­ten helped around the house. I miss her…I miss her a lot. Oma loved sports and had a bright and promis­ing fu­ture ahead. That was tak­en away from her.”

Nanan said the on­ly mem­o­ries she has of Oma are her fuzzy pho­tos and a com­mu­nion dress.

“That dress I doh like to watch be­cause she took com­mu­nion when she was about ten years old at the St Raphael Church. The hard­est part about Oma’s dis­ap­pear­ance is not know­ing what hap­pened.

Nanan said Oma would have been 44 on Jan­u­ary 21.

The pen­sion­er said be­fore de­part­ing this world she has one de­sire.

“I does wish that some­day I could see Oma. I still have hope that one day this case will be solved. I does say what is to be, will be.”