Gardaí believe a missing girl whom they suspect was smuggled into Ireland following an arranged marriage has returned to her native Romania.
The 12-year-old Roma girl went missing last April days after she had been removed by gardaí from a home in Tallaght, west Dublin.
The girl, called Arisiro, had been living there with her teenage Roma "husband" and his extended family in a household headed by the youth's father.
The couple have not been seen by gardaí since Arisiro walked out of Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children at Crumlin where she had been placed for her own protection.
After her disappearance, gardaí launched a public appeal for information on her whereabouts and searched houses in Tralee, Co Kerry, occupied by members of the Roma ethnic minority community.
Members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau have liaised with police in Romania, and said yesterday they believed the girl and her companion had travelled back there together.
Arisiro is believed to have been reunited with her family in the town of Hunedoara, western Romania.
"We have to confirm that it's her. From our initial contact with the Romanian police a young girl answering that description with that name has returned to her family," said a Garda source.
Gardaí suspect the minor was smuggled into Ireland following an arranged marriage in a religious service in Romania last year.
Garda investigations into the incident are ongoing.
Smuggling and trafficking of minors has increased in recent years and immigration gardaí are increasingly concerned about it.
New figures from the East Coast Area Health Board show that 863 unaccompanied asylum-seeker children aged under 18 were referred to it in 2002.
Family reunifications were arranged for 506 children.
The board's annual report notes an increase in referrals from the Garda National Immigration Bureau in relation to suspected trafficking of children for "exploitation or unknown purposes".
The report also says there was a continuing increase in the numbers of children under the age of 15 years who remained unaccompanied and in care.