Teresa Alfredo was just eight years old when she disappeared, having been found by police officers who took her to a home, which was her home for more than a decade. Now 26 years old, the girl who became a woman and police officer has reunited with her mother and family.
According to a statement from the National Police, to which VerAngola had access, the reunion took place on December 30th, at the Neves Bendinha police station, where the agent is stationed.
"The reunion was marked by moments of joy, satisfaction and emotion between mother and daughter, which broke a barrier of 17 years of frustration and despair, which culminated in postponed hugs and many tears of joy inside the Neves Bendinha police station of the Municipal Command of Luanda, where the lived history seemed more fiction than reality", the note reads.
Missing from her family, after finding herself "lost in strange circumstances", Teresa Alfredo grew up in the Lar de Acolhimento Horizonte Azul, where she was taken after being picked up from the street.
"The protagonist of the story, who lived in the Sambizanga neighborhood, municipality of Luanda, from where she disappeared when she was just eight years old, said that she joined the corporation after a visit to the center by a delegation from the Ministry of the Interior, headed by the outgoing minister, who attended at the request of the current PNA agent, within the scope of the Ministry's social responsibility", says the statement.
The agent said that at the time she disappeared she was found by police officers who "treated her very well".
Today he says he is a police officer and believes he is here to "look after, guide and accompany missing children".
"When I disappeared, I was found by police officers who treated me very well and welcomed me until I arrived at the home, which for 17 years was my super home, today I am a police officer and I feel that God put me here to care for, guide and accompany missing children, Thank you very much to everyone who did everything to provide me with the best Christmas and New Year's gift I could have", she revealed, quoted in the note.
In turn, Cristina André, the agent's mother, left a word of gratitude for the "welcome and education that the home provided" to her daughter, as well as to the Ministry of the Interior, "which did everything to make the meeting possible and TV Girassol for also help make history public."
The reunion was witnessed by the spokesperson for the Luanda Provincial Command of the National Police, Chief Superintendent Nestor Goubel, who, at the time, said it was "satisfactory for the corporation to give back a smile to a family".
"The police take great pleasure in actively participating in the lives of citizens and their officers in particular," he said.
The president of the Management Committee of the Horizonte Azul Association, Maria Esperança Pires dos Santos "Mother Teresa" said that "the center she directs has existed for over 24 years and has trained more than 300 children and defined the moment as the fulfillment of yet another mission", says the note.
