Greece Looking for Bulgarian Girl that Disappeared in Athens

A European alert has been issued to locate Ani Borisova, a 4-year-old girl who went missing in Athens on April 21, Bulgarian and Greek media outlets say.

Bulgarian public broadcaster reported that the girl's life might be in danger, according to Greek authorities cited by local news websites.

Ani is described as having brown hair and brown eyes.

Police are reportedly working on various hypotheses, abduction being the main one.

No information is available, as of Tuesday, about the girl's mother or the friend to whom she reportedly left Borisova to pay a visit to Bulgaria alone.

Her testimony is thought to be full of contradictions, since she claims her friend "lost" the child on a square in Greece's capital Athens, but was unable to remember what the friend's name was.

Investigators are therefore also seeking to discover whether the child had become part of a smuggling ring.

"Upon her return she was informed that her friend had taken the child out for a walk and lost her. The fact that the mother only knew her friend's first name has caused suspicion among the Greek officials who have undertaken the case," the Greek Reporer wrote on Monday.

A Greek non-profit, called The Smile of the Child, has now declared active involvement in the case, calling the media "and all organizations dealing with children in Greece and the EU" (though Borisova is not yet on its "Missing Children" list).

According to a Facebook message [GR] the non-profit is calling on anyone who saw the girl to contact it or use the European line for disappearances (116000) or police station across Greece.