Missing person case ends in tragedy

SINGAPORE – On Aug 29 at 11.05am, an 11-year-old boy with special needs stepped out of his Marine Crescent home, barefoot, shirtless and alone.

A neighbour’s CCTV camera caught a brief glimpse of Muhammad Hairil Effendi, who was mostly non-verbal, before he disappeared from the frame.

By evening, news of his disappearance had rippled across social media. Facebook groups lit up with appeals for information. Residents, joined by volunteers, fanned out across the neighbourhood, including East Coast Park and its lagoon, to help look for the boy.

At 10.52pm, the police issued an official appeal for information on his whereabouts.

The next evening, the waters off East Coast Park yielded a heartbreaking answer. A body recovered by police and Singapore Civil Defence Force officers was identified as that of Hairil.

In Gallup’s 2025 Law and Order Report, Singapore ranked as one of the safest places in the world.

The country scored 95 out of 100 on the Law and Order Index – one of the highest scores worldwide – and 98 per cent of residents surveyed said they feel safe walking alone at night.

But this sense of security creates a familiar “safety paradox”. In a city where danger feels distant, pockets of real vulnerability can be easy to miss.

One stark example is missing person cases.

In a tightly connected city-state with one of the world’s lowest crime rates and an extensive surveillance network, the idea of people simply disappearing seems almost unthinkable.