The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) upgraded a video it created to help find 2,000 kids that go missing every year in Washington, D.C., as well as those in other cities.
The Virginia-based nonprofit’s video shows pictures of missing children and is customized based on the viewer’s zip code.
While 2,000 children go missing in D.C. each year, the figure is over 400,000 for the entire United States. In 2018, a total of 424,066 missing cases were reported to U.S. authorities, according to the NCMEC.
Speaking to WUSA9, Henderson Long, an activist for D.C.’s missing people, said:
“Just never give up. Never give up on Relisha Rudd or any of our missing persons.”
Long was referring to the eight-year-old girl who disappeared in the District in 2014. Rudd was living in the D.C. General Shelter with her mother. She went missing after reportedly becoming friends with a janitor named Khalil Tatum. And she was last seen in CCTV footage, where she was with Tatum at a hotel. Police found Tatum’s body shot in a suicide a month after the little girl’s disappearance.
“It’s sad. It’s horrific when they’re out there you don’t know where they are, if they cold, if they hungry if they eating. Whether you’re dead or alive,” he added.
Long himself had the same experience, when his niece went missing. In addition to distributing her picture physically and on social media, he is now hoping to get help from NCMEC’s music video.
D.C. has seen 27 missing cases of children as of July this year.
The organization first produced the Runaway Train video, teaming up with alternative rock band Soul Asylum, 25 years ago. The video featuring real pictures of missing kids helped recover 21 of them. Now it has been upgraded on the 25-year anniversary as a remix performed by Jamie N Commons, Skylar Grey and Gallant.
The NCMEC encourages people with any information on one of the missing children to call 1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST).