In January of 2017, Chanel Dickerson, D.C.’s new Metropolitan Police Commander, pledged to find the 22 missing girls from America’s capitol.

Even though the police department utilizes social media, such as Twitter, for broadcasting the profiles of the missing young women, uploading the profiles daily, members of the Congressional Black Caucus are insisting for a federal investigation on the cases.

March 21, lawmakers from Washing D.C. issued a letter asking the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, and FBI Director James Comey to “devote the resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an anomaly, or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must be addressed.” The lawmakers added, “When children of color go missing, authorities often assume they are runaways rather than victims of abduction.”

Justice Department spokesperson, Sarah Isgur Flores confirmed that she briefed Sessions on the issue Friday, March 24.

“The Attorney General is aware of the reports and is looking into the issue,” says Flores.

The FBI has declined to comment on the matter.

According to CNN, the Metropolitan Police Department in D.C. has recorded 501 cases of missing children so far in 2017, and said that 22 cases were still open as of Wednesday, March 22.

“We have received a lot of media attention and a lot of concern from the public because of the number of releases,” Dickerson said at a news conference on Friday, March 24. “There have been concerns that young girls in the District of Columbia are victims of human trafficking or have been kidnapped.”

Police Commander Dickerson continued, saying, “And I say this without minimizing the number of missing persons in DC — because one missing person is one person too many — but there’s actually been a decrease,” she added. “There is always a concern of human trafficking, but we have no evidence for this.”

The case of the missing girls has gotten a lot of tread on social media once the hashtag, #find our missing girls began trending.   

Annual statistics project cases of missing children have remained relatively steady in Washington D.C. over the past several years — with 2,222 cases in 2014, 2,433 in 2015 and 2,242 in 2016.

D.C. Councilmember, Trayon White told HLN’s Michaela Pereira, “What the community is alarmed about — we had a 10-year-old girl missing the other day, but there was no amber alert,” White said. “We just feel like, you know, if this was a white person or from another neighborhood, there would be more alarm about it.”

“Any time you have a 10-year-old missing for any amount of hours and no one knows where he or she is, that is rules for immediate attention, that’s an alert that needs to be sent out,” White added, “because the more time that goes past, the less likely we are to find him or her.”

Putting numbers and Amber Alerts aside, the vice president at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Robert Lowery, said he is grateful an important conversation about missing young people is happening.

“I think the narrative is good,” Lowry said. “The more the public becomes aware of this issue of missing children, the more lives that can be protected and potentially even saved.”

“Our frustration is, we deal with a very desensitized public,” Lowery said to CNN. “The natural inclination (about a runaway) is the child’s behavioral problem is why they’ve left. We also see significant numbers of runaway children who are running away from a situation, whether it’s abuse or neglect or sexual abuse in the home. These children face unique risks when they’re gone so we applaud the conversation and we applaud the attention that this issue is being given.”

As of Thursday, April 13, 2017, the young womens’ whereabouts are still unknown.

On Saturday, March 18, 2017, a 39-year-old man by the name of Ziyed Ben Belgacom attacked the Orly airport in Paris, France. Belgacom held a female French soldier at gunpoint and shouted, “I am here to die in the name of Allah… There will be deaths,” before being shot to death by two soldiers patrolling the airport. According to French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Belgacom was shot after tackling the female soldier,  using her as a human shield, and attempting to take her weapon.

Thousands of travelers were evacuated and rerouted to other airports near by. Belgacom was the only casualty. Earlier that day, Belgacom stole a car from a French woman and shot a police officer after stealing his weapon. Officials said the officer didn’t suffer from any life threatening injuries. Francois Molins, a French prosecutor, was the one who identified the attacker as  Ziyed Ben Belgacom. Molins claims that Belgacom had a previous arrest record, such as arrests for violence and theft, including one five-year sentence that began in 2009.

However, Belgacom’s father insists that he is not a terrorist, and instead blames his actions on his drugs use. “My son was not a terrorist. He never prayed and he drank,” said Belgacom’s father. “This is what happens under the influence of drink and cannabis.” A toxicology report showed that Belgacon was in fact under the influence, as he had alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana in his system.

There were also a number of Belgacom relatives taken into custody and questioned. His father was released the next day, Sunday March 19. He stated that his son had called him after the first shooting and had sounded “very angry.” “He said to me: ‘Daddy, please forgive me. I’ve screwed up with a police officer,'” the father said. “I said I didn’t forgive him ‘because you hurt a policeman.'”

On March 14th, Somali pirates hijacked an oil tanker off the coast of Somalia. According to The Guardian this is the first hijacking of a large ship since 2012, and many local fishermen say this was a direct cause from the recent amount of foreign presence in Somalia. This hijacking has been the first takeover of a big ship in 5 whole years of peace.

The Guardian says they have interviewed elders and heard what they had to say about the hijacking. The elders said that the hijackers had been frustrated with the foreign fisherman recently, and said that the foreign fishermen had been illegally fishing in local waters and killing or catching all the fish either for game, or fun, instead of eating.

This sparked some conflict between the two groups of fishermen, and led to a few territorial issues. With the foreign fishermen excited and wanting to fish more and more of the exotic animals, they ruined the fishing for the local fishermen. This made the locals mad and they became frustrated, and this frustration eventually lead to the hijacking of the oil tanker.

A couple days after the hijacking, the oil tanker was released, with its crew, without any conditions. The release occurred after local elders and officials opened negotiations with the pirates. Somali pirates usually hijack ships and crew members for ransom, and generally do not kill their hostages.

According to The Guardian, the Puntland Maritime Police Force made an offer the Somali pirates couldn’t refuse, and they left the oil tanker and crew unscathed. The hijackers were also told that the oil tanker was from a Somali trader, and the hijackers no longer had any interest in the ransom money. The hijackers told the authorities that they only seized the ship because they wanted to protest about illegal fishing in the area that the foreign fishermen were doing in their waters.