Shropshire Star

Appeal to help find missing student

The friends of a student who went missing hours before sitting an exam are being urged to keep on searching for him.

Published
Jurij Kmito

Jurij Kmito was last seen on Monday at his home in St Michael's Street, Shrewsbury.

The 21-year-old had been due to sit an exam on Tuesday at University Centre Shrewsbury (UCS) but failed to turn up.

It is not known what Jurij, who is Lithuania, was wearing at the time he went missing but it is believed he had a rucksack with him.

Now students, staff and friends have teamed up in search for the missing student.

Students and staff at UCS are playing an active role in helping West Mercia Police track down Jurij.

Professor Anna Sutton, provost, is encouraging people to keep up their efforts to find him, by contacting police with any potentially helpful information and by sharing police social media posts as widely as possible.

She said: University Centre Shrewsbury is a very caring and close-knit learning community. We are understandably concerned that Jurij has not been seen since Monday evening and everyone is missing him, wherever he is. We are hoping that he will get in touch as soon as he can, to assure us that he is safe and well.

“Meanwhile, we have asked that if anyone knows, sees, or hears anything which might help locate Jurij that they call the police on 101, quoting incident number 823s220518, and use the official information on police social media networks to help spread the word further.”

Extensive inquiries are ongoing to find him and police are appealing for the public's help.

Detective Inspector Oliver Ewels said: "It is completely out of character for him to go missing and we're very concerned for his welfare.

"If anyone has seen him over the past few days or knows where he is we would ask them to get in contact."

Students and staff affected by Jurij’s unexplained absence have been offered support from the University’s Wellbeing Team.