Authorities say they haven’t given up on efforts to help a boy, who was just a year old when his non-custodial mother took him to Cameroon in 2003, return to the United States.
Investigators believe Kala Nwana’s mother dropped him off with relatives in Douala, Cameroon, in October 2003.
The pair fled from Laurel after Kala’s mother had a dispute with the boy’s father, who had custody of him, said Bob Lowery, executive director of the missing children division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
His mother returned to the United States about a month later, Lowery said, but there was no sign of the child.
State Department officials learned in 2005 that Kala was in Cameroon. But there have been no updates in the case since then, Lowery said, though officials believe Kala is still there.
Cameroon isn’t a signatory to the Hague Convention, which governs how countries recognize the laws and custody agreements of other nations in child abduction cases. That means the country hasn’t pledged to honor decisions made in U.S. courts and makes it less likely that authorities there and in the United States will be able to work out an agreement for Kala to be located and returned home, Lowery said.
Criminal charges have not been filed against Kala’s mother.
Kala would be 8 years old now. He is black and has brown eyes and black hair. He has a black mark on the back of his left thigh, according to NCMEC.
Anyone with information about this case is asked to call NCMEC at 800-843-567.
