Two Children Escape from Kindergarten in Sofia, Had a Ride on the Underground

Two children — a 5-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl — escaped from a kindergarten in Sofia, but have since been found.

The search lasted more than 40 minutes, and the boy and girl were discovered by police at the intersection of Madrid Boulevard and Cherkovna Street, approximately 5 kilometres from the kindergarten in the Hadzhi Dimitar neighbourhood.

The alert to the police was filed with almost an hour's delay. The 7-year-old girl managed to reach the the unlock button on the door at the entrance of the kindergarten. Here is what the parents had to say:

“At 10:20 a.m., I received a call from Kiko’s teacher, who said in a very concerned voice: ‘I’m very sorry, please come to the kindergarten immediately — Kristian is missing,’” said Snezhana Dancheva, mother of 5-year-old Kristian.

The boy told his mother that the girl wanted to take him to her house:

“They both say that she wanted to take him home with her. But they’re children. From the kindergarten, all we were told was that the children were gone and that they were very sorry.”

“There is controlled access, but I explain the escape by saying the children weren’t watched closely enough. Perhaps a lack of staff — I don’t know, let’s put it that way. They pressed a little button on the door, walked out, and no one noticed. Possibly for about 45–50 minutes, no one realised they were gone,” said Lyubomir Gergovski, father of 7-year-old Katrin.

According to the police, the children were outside the kindergarten for over an hour and even travelled on the underground.

“They were outside for more than an hour. To us, this represents a failure in the child supervision system,” stated Iliya Kuzmanov, Deputy Chief of the 5th Police Precinct at Sofia Metropolitan Directorate of Internal Affairs (SDVR).

One of the parents is considering filing a formal complaint.