Frederic Kouakou, right, father of missing boy Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou, hugs a supporter on March 22, 2018, in Montreal.Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press
A year after 10-year-old Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou vanished after setting out to visit a friend in north-end Montreal, new efforts are being launched this week to find him.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Montreal Transit Corp. will display the boy’s photo on electronic screens in all 68 stations of the city’s subway system. His photo will also appear on the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce’s monthly billing envelopes for the month of May.
Ariel Jeffrey Kouakou, 10, is seen in this undated police handout image.HO/The Canadian Press
The initiatives are promoted in collaboration with the Missing Children’s Network and the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.
The public is also invited to join Ariel’s family and friends Tuesday evening at Saint-Joseph-de-Bordeaux church near the riverside park where he was last seen. A mass will be celebrated for the boy.
His parents, Fred and Noella Kouakou, thanked Montreal police and the public for the support and “outpouring of love” they have received in the past year.
On March 12, 2018, Ariel left home to visit a friend who lived nearby, but there was nobody home. Surveillance cameras captured Ariel entering a park on the banks of the Rivière-des-Prairies, Que., but he was never seen leaving the park.