A 9-year-old boy from the town of Ungheni, who went missing on Tuesday, 21 July, in the river Prut, has been found dead on Thursday morning, 23 July. Divers of the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations (IGSU) thus ended two days of searching: the child’s body was found 3–4 kilometres downstream from where he had entered the water to bathe with other children.
The child had left home on his scooter and had not returned. The case was registered on Tuesday, at 23.50, after a call to the 112 emergency line about a suspected drowning on the Prut.
Police gave this preliminary account of how the child disappeared:
In the course of the measures taken, officers checked all the locations and spoke to local residents. The investigation established that the minor had gone to the river Prut together with other children. It was preliminarily established that the children entered the water to bathe and that at some point the child is believed to have been swept away by the river’s strong currents and disappeared from view. The boy’s personal belongings, left before he entered the water, were found by police. Police of the Republic of Moldova
The police account is preliminary; the exact cause of death is to be established by law enforcement.
The end of the search
On Thursday, 23 July, at 09.47, following underwater search operations, IGSU divers located the child’s body and recovered it to the bank, the institution announced. According to IGSU, the body was found about 4 kilometres from the site of the incident; police gave a distance of around 3 kilometres from where the boy had entered the water.
The circumstances and the exact cause of death are to be established by law enforcement. General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations
Two days of searching
From the morning of Wednesday, 22 July, the diving team of the Ungheni Rescuers and Firefighters Unit searched the indicated area, together with police officers and volunteers from the town. The search was halted overnight and resumed on Thursday morning.
On Wednesday evening, police said on their own channel that the operation was coordinated through a crisis cell set up at the Ungheni Police Inspectorate, and called on the public to seek information only from official sources. How many people were searching, along which stretch of the river and with what equipment did not, however, appear in any statement.
A month after the district ordered patrols on the Prut
On 22 June, the Emergency Situations Commission of Ungheni district ordered joint patrols by police, firefighters and the border police in the bathing areas along the Prut, including at weekends. At the same meeting, the commission found that the town’s water rescue post had to be brought up to standard.
Four days after that decision, on 26 June, a 16-year-old drowned at Măcărești, in a prohibited area where he was bathing with friends. On 29 June, the General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations reported that 31 people had drowned since the start of 2026, seven of them minors.
The town of Ungheni has two developed beaches with lifeguards. Where the children entered the water on Tuesday is not specified in the police statement.