Have you seen this teenaged girl?

The family of Niala Nero want her to know that they miss her, and want her to return home.

Niala’s parents, Errol and Angelina Nero, told SEARCHLIGHT on Wednesday night that there had been no warning signs that the 17-year-old would pack a bag and leave their Plan, Campden

Park home, on Friday, June 28.

“I don’t know how to put the situation. She is not a child that would just get up and leave,” Errol told SEARCHLIGHT.

“Because I left home on Friday morning.

I leave them in the room. I go in and I tell them I’m going and what to do for the day, and surprisingly, when I come back in the evening, I didn’t meet her. When I ask for her, she wasn’t there, she was gone.

“I wait on a little while, because I thought she went down the road in the neighbourhood, and then she didn’t come after nine o’ clock; I start to get scared,” Niala’s father said.

Errol said that the day before, he and his daughter went to Stubbs, where they collected soursop, and she was looking forward to him making juice with the fruits, which he promised that he would do the following day.

But that was not to be.

Angelina told SEARCHLIGHT that from the end of April, up to Sunday, June 30, she had been in Trinidad, where she had undergone hip replacement surgery.

She said that while there, she was in constant contact with her daughter, and spoke to her up to the day before she left home.

“Because even in that same week, when I was scheduled to come, she was telling me what she want.

“So, somebody who making plans for their mother to bring what they want for them is not somebody who would pick up and walk away,” she said.

SEARCHLIGHT was told by the parents that the last person to see Niala was one of her school friends, who helped the girl pack some clothes, followed her into town, and helped her to catch a van.

The parents say that the friend has refused to say anything more.

Errol said that he has since reported the matter to the police, who later informed him that the information has been passed to the other stations around the island.

Both parents say that Niala’s action is uncharacteristic, since their daughter was well-mannered, knew where to draw the line with her behaviour, and to the best of their knowledge, she didn’t have a boyfriend, neither was she sexually active.

“My daughter, if she go in town and she meet she friends and she going somewhere else, she would call to say where she going,” Angelina stated.

Now, calls and texts to Niala’s phone are going unanswered.

Checks with other friends and relatives have turned up no clues as to where the teenager could be.

The third form student of the Bethel High School, who was up until last year a student of the Bishop’s College Kingstown, is a member of the Royal St Vincent and the Grenadines Cadet Corps marine unit.

Niala’s 13-year-old sister Monifah, also a student of the Bethel High School, shares the sentiment of her parents, telling SEARCHLIGHT that she misses her sister, and wants her to return home.

Niala’s parents are pleading with anyone with information to contact them, or the nearest police station.

The parents made a final appeal for their daughter to return home.

“We would like to tell her wherever she is, that we need her back home,” Errol said.

“We just want her to come home,” her mother echoed. (JJ)