On Friday, February 3, 2006, it seemed like an ordinary winter day in the northern Greek town of Veria. Eleven-year-old Alex Meshishvili (often spelled Alex Meskhishvili), a small, polite boy known for his glasses and gentle manner, left home to meet friends. He was supposed to stop by his stepfather’s shop so they could walk back together.

He never returned.

Alex had always been punctual and responsible. When hours passed without a call, his mother, Natela—a Georgian immigrant raising her only child in Greece—quickly sensed this was not a simple delay. Something was very wrong.

Police were alerted. Large-scale searches began, joined by volunteers who combed the town despite snowfall that made the effort even harder.

Very soon, Alex’s disappearance shook all of Greece.

A Town Searching, a Society Unprepared

Among those searching was Gianna Pilitsidou, then active in the parents’ association at Alex’s school and today a founding member and PR and fundraising manager of the child-protection NGO Initiative for the Child.

Speaking to To Vima, she recalls the psychological toll:

“I lived it all up close. Intense, draining moments. I remember the first gathering at the school to organize search groups. It had snowed, which made everything harder. That’s when a school psychologist mentioned the word ‘bullying.’ We were hearing it for the first time. She explained that what might have happened could be bullying.”

Rumors spread: accident, abduction, criminal act, runaway child. None could be confirmed. Natela desperately searched for her son.

“Days passed and the scenarios multiplied. We lost valuable time. There should have been more coordinated action and a higher level of readiness from specialists,” Pilitsidou says.

At the same time, investigative journalist Angeliki Nikolouli began a long, methodical inquiry through her popular TV program Fos sto Tounel (“Light in the Tunnel”), known in Greece for covering disappearances and unsolved crimes. Her reporting started to narrow the field.

The likelihood of abduction or voluntary disappearance faded. Accident and criminal action remained possible, but unproven.

Witnesses stayed silent. Yet testimonies gathered by Nikolouli pointed to a group of five minors with a pattern of violent behavior.

Contradictions and a Chilling Turn

Four months later, police summoned each child separately for questioning. Their statements were increasingly contradictory. Some spoke of a verbal argument, others of a fight, others of a friendly meeting. Stories shifted. Small details opened new investigative paths.

As the case grew darker and more complex, the five children insisted they knew nothing. Yet inconsistencies multiplied.

Eventually, each separately confirmed a location where they said Alex had been buried. But on June 4, 2006, they retracted, claiming police pressure had forced their confessions.

In mid-June, a deputy prosecutor returned the case file to Veria’s security police for further work.

“A Night That Lasted Forever”

Angeliki Nikolouli still recalls her first impressions vividly:

“A child disappears into the night. A town initially indifferent to this ‘foreign child,’ then gradually numb, avoiding eye contact. From the first moment I knew something serious had happened. I followed Alex’s trail that night.”

She describes half-truths, contradictions and an uneasy atmosphere among students who seemed to know more than they said. Her investigation brought her abruptly into the world of minors, where violence can hide behind games, peer groups and schoolyards.

She focused on the more “unruly” students. One boy—the Greek leader of the group—told her, “We used to tell him, ‘Hey Russian, get out of here,’” a slur reflecting how immigrant children were often labeled. When asked what might have happened to Alex, the boy suggested many could have hurt him.

“The truth was there, standing against silence, asking to be revealed,” Nikolouli says.

The picture sharpened when it emerged that these children had waited for Alex outside his tutoring center. According to the court’s conclusion, the 11-year-old lost his life at their hands.

His mother is still searching for his remains to this day. The body was never found.

Nikolouli says her show continues to investigate. Recently, testimonies pointed to a specific spot in Veria’s old town, but authorities did not proceed with excavation because properties now stand there.

“Perhaps the child’s secret is buried in the foundations of one of those buildings,” she says.

“Why Get Involved?”

Fear, indifference and a truth left waiting.

“The truth in Alex’s case was shouting. It was scattered in the children’s changing testimonies and in silent adults. The mentality of ‘why should I get involved?’—fear of exposure, of gossip in a small town—became a wall we had to break,” Nikolouli explains.

She believes separating the five boys early and placing them under specialist supervision might have changed everything.

With the help of a lawyer, one boy from the group—a child from the Greek minority in Albania—was moved to Athens and placed under protection as a key witness. Despite later attempts to influence him, he never changed his testimony.

From his account emerged a grim sequence: a trip on the steps near the town hall, blood from Alex’s head, his glasses thrown away, his transfer to an abandoned house, and later his removal with a supermarket cart to the Barbouta district in Veria’s old town. There, adult relatives allegedly helped dispose of the body.

The Confession

One minor’s testimony described the assault:

A boy blocked Alex’s path near the town hall. Three others beat him after an earlier exchange of insults. They kicked and punched him. He was still conscious and tried to escape down the steps. One child tripped him. He fell and lay motionless. Another checked his heartbeat and placed a tissue behind his bleeding head.

When someone suggested calling an ambulance, another refused: “No, we’ll get in trouble.”

They carried him to an abandoned house. Alex’s glasses were given to one boy to throw away. Three boys carried him by head, waist and legs while two waited outside. Two days later, when they returned, relatives had already moved him elsewhere.

The testimony remains chilling in its bluntness.

The Sentences

A juvenile court in Thessaloniki found the five boys guilty. Under Greek juvenile law, they received reformative measures rather than adult prison sentences. The charges included fatal bodily harm without intent to kill and desecration of a corpse.

In 2011, the grandfather of two boys was sentenced to 4.5 years for harboring criminals and repeated perjury. He was found to have concealed his grandchildren’s involvement.

Parents of group members received suspended 12-month sentences for neglect of minor supervision. One mother was acquitted because she had sought help from authorities about her son’s behavior.

To this day, the perpetrators have not revealed where Alex’s body is. Since 2017, investigators have continued searching.

Shared Responsibility

Pilitsidou remembers the shock of learning the children were involved:

“They were all victims too—first Alex, then even the perpetrators. These were heavily neglected children. We already knew this as a parents’ association.”

She had previously tried to intervene with two families. There was no structured framework to support at-risk children. The Alex case, she says, showed what happens when society looks but does not truly see.

Nikolouli argues responsibility was—and remains—collective. Families often struggle alone. Schools failed to recognize and manage bullying. The state lacked meaningful prevention and protection structures.

“When violence becomes normalized, we all share responsibility. Because we tolerated it, underestimated it, stayed silent. Alex was the most tragic outcome of that chain of failures.”

She still remembers a grandmother saying dismissively, “You turned everything upside down for one little Russian boy?”

From Tragedy to Action: “Initiative for the Child”

Alex’s disappearance became a turning point. It exposed deep, chronic gaps in child protection: failure to identify at-risk children, lack of prevention mechanisms, and social silence around neglect and exclusion.

It also showed how children growing up in severe neglect and abuse can, through anger and frustration, turn violently against more vulnerable peers.

Out of this shock came action. Nearly two years later, citizens in Veria founded the Social Initiative of Veria “Initiative for the Child,” a nonprofit child-protection organization.

General Director Valantis Karagiannis says the Alex case remains a moral compass:

“A boundary of memory and a constant reminder of duty. Society must see early, intervene preventively and never stay silent when children are at risk.”

The organization now runs a network of services, including safe housing for at-risk children, family support, counseling, trauma therapy, semi-independent living for youth and adolescent empowerment centers.

Board member Antonis Vitos stresses their role is complementary to the state:

“Even helping one child is a gain for society. Seeing children stand on their own feet and progress in life brings enormous moral satisfaction.”

Preventing Violence

The “Initiative Against Violence Toward Children,” part of the PREVENT program, focuses on education and digital tools to combat child violence in schools in the Imathia region.

Program director and Bodossaki Foundation representative Jennifer Clarke emphasizes awareness and community support as the foundation of prevention. The goal is not only intervention after violence occurs but building protective environments around children.

The program targets students, teachers and parents, offering knowledge and practical tools to recognize, prevent and address violence.

PREVENT—funded by the EU’s Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) program along with the Bodossaki Foundation and NGO Support Centre Cyprus—supports 24 projects in Greece with €2.3 million in total grants.

Breaking the Silence

Recognition. Prevention. Response. These cannot be separated when discussing youth violence. Child protection is a collective duty.

Twenty years later, Nikolouli says:

“I carry the face of a child who never grew up. I carry the injustice in his mother’s face as she suffers for 20 years not knowing where he lies. I carry the coldness of the children when I sought them later, hoping for even one ‘sorry.’”

Some seemed to have erased the event from memory. One, now an Albanian national, even showed aggression toward Alex’s mother.

But Nikolouli also carries a sense of duty:

“For me, continuing the investigation is not just journalism. It’s a personal obligation to his mother and to society. As long as God gives me strength, I will keep searching.”

Alex’s story remains etched in Greece’s collective memory—a painful reminder of what happens when violence, neglect and silence intersect.

And of a night that, for one mother, never truly ended.