MONTREAL — Sami Bachir, a co-ordinator with a Quebec search and rescue group that helped look for a missing three-year-old girl this week, says he felt goosebumps when he learned she had been found after four days.
At the direction of Quebec provincial police, dozens of volunteers spent long hours wading through tick-and-mosquito infested tall grasses and marshes on the side of highways west of Montreal, he said in an interview Thursday. Volunteers are used to tough conditions, he added, but the thought of coming across such a young girl in such a place weighed on their minds.
“It’s hard to describe, because we make so many sacrifices, we put so many things aside to go help in these situations that when we find the person alive after four days, it’s a very, very intense feeling of relief,” he said.
Police are thanking volunteers like Bachir and other members of the public for helping to find the girl, who was allegedly abandoned by her mother near Casselman, Ont., on Sunday afternoon and spotted four days later by an Ontario Provincial Police drone along Highway 417 near the rural community of St. Albert, Ont., about 50 kilometres west of the Quebec border.
Members of the public shared the girl's name and photos on social media, and called in tips to police. But now that she has been found safe, Quebec police are asking the public to step back, in hopes the girl can regain some privacy.
"It's a very difficult ordeal and what she needs right now is to rest, regain her strength, and also to return to anonymity," Jean-Raphaël Drolet, a provincial police spokesman, said Thursday in a video published to social media.
"Which is why we're currently counting on everyone to stop spreading her identity or publishing photos or videos that could identify her."
The girl's 34-year-old mother, Rachel-Ella Todd, has been charged with unlawful abandonment of a child and returns to court on Friday.
On his Instagram page on Wednesday, the girl's father posted a story with the caption: "she has been found, thank you to everyone!"
He added, "please allow me and my family to take this time with our girl."
Nancy Duncan, director of operations at the Missing Children's Network, said they were thrilled with the outcome. The organization has been in contact with the child's father.
"Obviously what she underwent was an extremely traumatic situation and we just hope that her and her family can find peace and comfort and that she feels safe and that they can get the help that she needs," Duncan said in an interview.
Duncan said the exchange and flow of information between law enforcement, partners, and the public was "extraordinary."
"I think it's thanks to that we were able to see the end result we all witnessed yesterday," she said.
Duncan, a 20-year veteran of the non-profit organization, said social media has been a game-changer in some ways when it comes to how quickly information is disseminated in missing children cases.
"Being able to push out alerts with the media on social media, everyone's got their phones with them at all times, so it's really (about) being able to reach everybody as quickly as possible," Duncan said.
"We've come a long way from having to get partners to help us print posters and then distribute them in places, put them up, mail them out."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2025.
Sidhartha Banerjee and Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
