Search continues for 11-year-old boy in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, missing for almost a week

The search for an 11-year-old boy missing in Kugluktuk, Nunavut, since Aug. 1 continues, but has been scaled back to a ground search. 

In a news release Wednesday, Nunavut RCMP said multiple air and water searches for Jonas Klengenberg have not been successful. They are still searching for him by ATV.

Jayko Palongayak, who lives next door to Jonas and his family, said the last week has been very difficult for the community.

“He plays outside and all that, but we’ve never known him to go far from here,” Palongayak said. 

He also said Kugluktuk residents, including himself, continue to search. 

“The community’s still in shock.”

Palongayak searched along the community’s shore in his canoe, looking for any sign of Jonas.

“There was none to be found,” he said.

Jonas left his home in the early morning hours on Thursday last week wearing grey one-piece pyjamas and black and red shoes, according to his family.

The boy is described as four feet tall and weighing 52 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. 

Helen Klengenberg, Jonas’s great aunt, said the community is doing it’s best to search for the boy, “from children, to adults, to grandmothers.”

Klengenberg also said Jonas has Down syndrome and is “non-communicative.”

“It would make it a lot more difficult to hear him if he’s anywhere,” she said. 

“Community pulls together in a situation like this and it’s become just more difficult. It’s been a week now.”

With files from Nadeer Hashmi