Interpol appeals for public help after dead boy found in river Danube leaves German police baffled

• The boy, thought to be five or six years old, was found in Bavaria last year in May
• German police have so far been unable to identify him or work out how he died

International police organisation Interpol has appealed for help from the public over the case of a dead boy found in the Danube river that left German police baffled.

The boy, estimated to be five or six years old, was found in May last year in Bavaria, weighed down with a flagstone slab and wrapped in foil, Interpol said in a statement.

German police, unable to identify the body or the circumstances of his death, asked Interpol to issue a ‘Black Notice’, an international alert to gather information on unidentified bodies.

Interpol said it was not known how long the body had been in the water when it was found on May 19, 2022, near Grossmehring, a Bavarian municipality of 7,500 inhabitants.

He was approximately 110 cm (3 foot 7) tall, weighed 15 kilograms (33 pounds), and had brown hair and blood type 0.

Police in Germany have reconstructed the face of a boy, thought to be five or six, who was found in the Danube last year 

Interpol said it was not known how long the body had been in the water when it was found on May 19, 2022. Picture: file image of the River Danube

German police released a 3D reconstruction of what the boy is thought to look like at the end of last year, offering 10,000 euros (£8,600) reward for valuable information from the public.  

Police think the boy spent time outside Germany, which is why Interpol’s 195 member countries may be able to shed light on his death and ‘whether he was victim of trafficking, abduction or violence’, said Juergen Stock, the organisation’s secretary general said.

‘Someone, somewhere knows something about this boy,’ he said in the statement.

Members of the public, ‘particularly those who remember a missing child whose characteristics and disappearance indicate a potential link to the case’, are invited to contact the German police, Interpol said.

It said the ‘I-Familia’ tool, which it started operating in 2021 to identify unknown bodies through international family DNA kinship matching, could become useful in the case.

The investigation falls under the ‘Identify Me’ programme framework, launched earlier this year and aimed at cold cases.

Identify Me, created to help identify 22 suspected female murder victims, has received more than 500 messages and tips from the public, Interpol said.

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