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The 20-year-old Kiramy Kissy Montenegro Rodríguez, known as Kira, who had been missing for eight days in Havana, was found alive this Tuesday and is now with her family.
The news was confirmed by her mother, Dilcell Rodríguez, on social media; and her sister Kathleen Montenegro also informed CiberCuba.
Kira's return home puts an end to more than a week of anguish for family and friends, as well as an intense search primarily driven by social media.
So far, the family has not disclosed the circumstances surrounding the young woman's disappearance, but they expressed gratitude for the concern and support in locating her.
"Thank God my girl showed up. Thank you all very much. It was thanks to you that I found her. Blessings to everyone," the mother expressed on Facebook.
The case became public on December 22, when Kira's mother revealed in the Facebook group "Somos Mantilla" that her daughter had been missing from home for a week and requested the public's help to locate her. The family filed a report with the police on the 20th, but had not yet received any information.
On that same day, the internet user Deymi D'Atri proposed activating the Alerta Yeniset, which has been created by independent gender observatories for cases of disappearance of women and girls in Cuba. D'Atri shared information about the young woman on her Facebook profile to help find her.
The last sighting of Kira was on December 15, when a neighbor saw her in the Park of Fraternity.
Kira is studying Industrial Engineering and lives in Mantilla, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality.
Her disappearance gained significant visibility on social media, due to alerts published by her family and the dissemination by citizens, activists, organizations, and independent media, who mobilize in cases like this due to the lack of official channels in the country to conduct a search for a missing person.
The Gender Observatory of the magazine Alas Tensas (OGAT) reiterated this Wednesday that "in the Cuban context, there are no official citizen alerts, there are no public search protocols, nor accessible records to activate a quick location," which is why "families often rely on one immediate tool: social media."
“Publishing, sharing, and sustaining public pressure ultimately serves as the main mechanism for alerting and mobilizing the community when someone goes missing,” warned OGAT.
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