“I want to reassure you that incidents like the one in Kaunas are extremely rare. There are certainly no trends and circumstances that indicate that the security situation in Lithuania has changed,” the minister told a press conference on Wednesday.
Bilotaitė noted that in most of the cases – 99 percent– the missing children are found safe and sound in two or three days.
“Most of them are found with their friends, relatives or in shopping centres. A significant share of the disappeared are hostages to their parents’ conflicts. As far as abduction is concerned, such cases are generally exceptions in Lithuania. This is a truly exceptional case,” says Bilotaitė.
Police Commissioner General Renatas Požėla also stated that the overall security situation had remained unchanged in the country.
“We have preliminary crime data from last year, which show that there were no drastic changes in comparison to the data from 2022 and 2021,” the police chief said.
“Police recorded slightly over 50 criminal offences [against children] in the country, which is essentially similar to the year before. (&) Lithuania is certainly a safe country, probably one of the safest in the region and possibly in the EU,” Požėla added.