The young woman whose body was discovered in Paceville on Tuesday evening – believed to be missing 17-year-old Polina Rahman – died after falling from a height, the police said.
The badly-decomposed body was found at Wied Ħarq Ħamiem, the valley which lies between Pembroke and St Julian’s and which leads to St George’s Bay, after a group of passersby noticed a foul smell.
An autopsy was carried out yesterday morning, and the cause of death was found to have been a skull fracture sustained during a fall. The police’s statement neither claimed nor ruled out foul play; the identity of the woman was not confirmed either.
The woman likely fell from Prof. Walter Ganado Street in Pembroke, which overlooks the valley and which is bounded by a low boundary wall.
Two young women have been reported missing in recent days: Ms Rahman, who is of Russian nationality, and 18-year-old Hungarian national Agnes Revesz.
Ms Rahman had last been seen in Paceville in the small hours of Tuesday, 17 July, two days after she arrived to Malta on a study holiday. She had failed to return to her host family after attending a welcome party organised by the language school she was attending.
Her parents came to Malta in the aftermath of her disappearance to search for their only daughter, distributing flyers, affixing posters and even offering a reward for information in the process.
Circumstantial evidence – including personal belongings – strongly suggests that the body discovered is that of Ms Rahman. However, DNA tests are required to confirm this, and at the time of going to print, the police had not yet identified the body.
Ms Rahman’s disappearance had led the Federation of English Language Teaching Organisations Malta (FELTOM) to issue a statement on Monday in which it expressed concern about the fact that an underage language student was out unsupervised at 4 am.
FELTOM had noted that its member schools – Ms Rahman was not attending one of them – were strongly advised to ensure that minor students are supervised at all times, have curfews in effect and are kept away from Paceville through the organisation of events elsewhere.
When asked to comment on FELTOM’s assertion, a Tourism Ministry spokesman stressed that a monitoring board set up by the Education Ministry is empowered to recommend measures against schools found to be in breach of the relevant legal provisions. Legal Notice 60 of 1996 obliges language schools to provide adequate supervision for minor students during non-academic academic activities.
The spokesman stressed that while the ministry expressed solidarity with Ms Rahman’s parents in these difficult times, it felt it would be inopportune to comment on ongoing investigations into her disappearance. The statement was received ahead of Tuesday evening’s grim discovery.
Ms Revesz, who remains unaccounted for, is last known to have been in Qawra on Sunday, having failed to return to the home she was living in with her aunt and uncle. She is slim, with red hair and blue eyes, and was last seen wearing a pink dress and white running shoes.
People with any information on the whereabouts of a missing person are asked to contact the police by calling 119 in confidence or by visiting a police station.