Federal authorities are looking for two Black girls who have been missing from their home in northern Michigan for nearly two months.
FBI Offices in Detroit and Miami have announced that they are working with the Roscommon County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan to track down teen sisters Iris and Tamara Perez, according to WPBN.
Iris, 14, and Tamara, 15, disappeared on June 28 and were last spotted by their neighbor near their Houghton Lake residence, the FBI said. The two were walking toward woods near their home when they were last seen.
According to the agency, footage shows a vehicle described as “a newer model, white Jeep” near the scene where the duo vanished. Officials said the sisters lived with their adoptive parents in Florida until the family moved to Michigan in March.
“They moved to Michigan after they were found in the biological mother’s home in Port St. Lucie, Florida,” the FBI noted.
The Perez sisters are among the thousands of Black people reported missing every year. Statistics from the Black and Missing Foundation Inc. show that people of color made up nearly 40 percent of missing cases in 2022. The data is alarming, considering that Black people only comprise 13 percent of the population. The nonprofit organization emphasized that more than half of missing people of color are children under 18.
Experts and advocates have repeatedly called out how Black women and girls do not receive the same media coverage as their white counterparts. More recently, the conversation was propelled to the forefront after the September 2021 disappearance of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old influencer who went missing during a van excursion with her fiancé. Her story made national headlines while stories of missing people of color were buried.
