Mother of Ben Needham backs missing child tweets

Ben Needham went missing on the Greek island of Kos in 1991

A mother whose son disappeared while on holiday 20 years ago, is backing a campaign to publish the details of missing youngsters on Twitter.

Kerry Needham's son Ben went missing on the Greek island of Kos in 1991.

Ms Needham, from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, said the Internet and mobile phones were a vital tool in the search for such children.

The 25 May has been designated International Missing Children Day.

Ms Needham said the international appeals were a significant development and called the Twitter proposal "absolutely amazing, a really, really good idea".

Contact details

She said: "It involves not only Ben's information, but it will feature a missing person every 30 minutes on Twitter

"It would probably be their contact details, maybe some information on where they disappeared from, who to get in contact with if you have any information."

Ms Needham said the viral spread of information was something she could not have imagined when her son went missing.

She added: "It is sent from just one person and then is re-tweeted and re-tweeted and in 30 minutes that information could hit thousands of people.

"Ben's Twitter campaign has had a marvellous response, I believe the other day it had 4,200 followers.

"Ben's been missing for 20 years (in July) and it's getting more and more difficult to keep up the publicity.

"The internet, and social networking sites gave the campaigns looking for missing children "extra eyes and ears"

"If this had been around when Ben disappeared I don't think I'd be in this situation, doing interviews, I believe Ben would have been found.

"We need to move forward, move with the times and get Ben's information out there, it is the click of a button.

"The more the information is put out there, the more chance we have of finding him, or him finding us."

Ben Needham went missing during a family holiday on the island of Kos in 1991 when he was 21 months old.