Why Are Black People Going Missing?

We are still reeling over the death of Richard Okorogheye, who was reported missing on March 22nd.

When his mother Evidence Joel first notified the police that Richard hadn’t come home she was chillingly told “What makes you think we can find him if you can’t?”

Blessing Olusegun

A year prior Blessing Olusegun was 21 years old when her body was discovered on a beach in East Sussex in September 2020.

Her death has been deemed as “unexplained” by Sussex Police and a postmortem has determined she died by drowning.

But with a large gap of time between when she was last spotted alive to the discovery of her body, much mystery remains around her death.

Campaigners say the government must do more to address the reasons – and that their relatives must stop being treated as merely a nuisance.

According to recent data from the National Crime Agency, Black people accounted for 14 per cent of missing people in England and Wales between 2019 and 2020, over four times (3 per cent) their relative population.

Though the agency does not currently have a breakdown in missing people by age, data shows that more Black men (13 per cent) went missing than Black women (10 per cent).

There is hope.

Dominic Norton and Rainey David created a website called Missing Black People to highlight, boost and amplify.

They see this as “a community effort to reduce the amount of missing Black people in the UK and to increase public safety and awareness surrounding issues that result in missing Black people.”

We are sharing this to raise awareness.

We would like to take this opportunity to send our respects to the families and loved ones of Richard Okorogheye and Blessing Olusegun.

Your lives matter.

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