Germany has joined with the Netherlands to be part of the AMBER Alert Europe program. The two countries will now be able to reach more than 100 million people if an AMBER Alert is issued.
The Netherlands started its child abduction alert system in 2008 and is the founding member of AMBER Alert Europe.
The program uses SMS text messages, email, social media, smartphone apps, pop-ups and screensavers, website pop-ups, highway signs, TV and radio, digital signs and advertising screens to notify the public when a child has been abducted in a certain area.
The two countries already had an ad-hoc cooperation agreement to notify the public when a child was abducted. The first AMBER Alert was issued for two missing brothers who were last seen near the German-Dutch border. The second alert was issued for a 4-year-old boy from Groningen, Netherlands, which is only 30 minutes away from the German border. A citizen’s tip helped to safely find the boy in less than 2 hours.
“Germany and the Netherlands are 2 of the most interconnected countries in the world,” said Viviane Kusters-Brokerhof, spokesperson for AMBER Alert Netherlands. “We need to make sure that in the future it only takes a child alert 90 seconds to be issued in the entire region–-in German and in Dutch—and on both sides of the border.”
German and Dutch residents can register to receive the alerts at www.amberalert.eu.