S'pore man, 76, with mild dementia, found after going missing for a week in M'sia, up to 40 Grab drivers searched for him

An elderly Singaporean man with mild dementia, who went missing on Feb. 7 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, has been found.

The update to the search for Halim bin Yunos was shared on Instagram on Feb. 15, by his son-in-law, who goes by the name of Wan.

Halim was found in Cheras when he was looking into the home of a family who was having reunion dinner, according to the Instagram story of Imran M Sinwan, a colleague of Wan.

Upon checking his wallet and discovering that he was Singaporean, the family took him to a police station.

30-40 Grab drivers helped in the search after son-in-law asked colleague for help

Speaking to Mothership, Imran shared that he was informed by Wan on Feb. 9 that his father-in-law was missing.

This was after Wan had spent Feb. 8 searching for the elderly man by himself.

The elderly man had gone missing some time between Feb. 7 night and the wee hours of Feb. 8.

Imran added that he then reached out to a personal contact in Kuala Lumpur who was a Grab driver, who was able to get another four more Grab drivers to physically assist Wan in his search.

After two days of searching from morning to midnight and covering ground by motorbike, the drivers suggested getting more manpower to help with the search as fatigue was setting in, Imran said.

After agreeing to their suggestion, the five Grab drivers then reached out to their own fellow drivers, resulting in a total of 30 to 40 drivers helping out in the search.

"We called it Operation Cari Halim Yunos," he said.

This translated to "Find Halim Yunos".

How the search was carried out

Imran added that the team conducted their search by looking for Halim in a circular area around his last known location, which they divided up into four quadrants.

The drivers were then divided into pairs, with each pair carrying out their search within a 1km, 2km, 3km and 4km to 5km radius of the respective quadrants they were assigned to.

Imran himself acted as the central coordinator for the operation.

During their search, the drivers would ask shopkeepers for information on Halim's whereabouts, as well as distribute posters of Halim.

In total, 6,000 posters were printed, Imran added.

They also engaged mosques in Kuala Lumpur to help raise awareness of the issue.

The search was also carried out at night, from 10pm to about 5am, on the grounds that there were fewer crowds, that it would be easier to spot people who where walking by themselves, and that people walking would also be in need of finding a spot to rest.

During this time, Imran also joined Wan's family and friends in searching for Halim on foot around the Chow Kit area in Kuala Lumpur.

Halim's eventual discovery at Cheras on Feb. 14 was at a 7km radius in the quadrant they had marked as "Area 4", Imran said.

He added, "If we had only done Area 1 from the start, we would likely not have found him. The initial wide coverage mattered."

Background

Speaking to Mothership earlier, Wan said his family had travelled to Kuala Lumpur to attend a cousin's wedding, his son-in-law said.

The event went smoothly and the elderly man only went missing afterwards.

"We saw that actually he went out of the residence," Wan said, adding that his mother-in-law knocked on their door to inform him that his father-in-law had left.

However, the family was unable to locate the elderly man despite searching around the area.

They later lodged a police report in Malaysia on Feb. 8 after he did not return to the residence that morning.

Prior to this, the elderly man had previously been showing "tell-tale" signs for about a year and was officially diagnosed with dementia around a couple of months ago, according to Wan.

Top images from wan_toh/Instagram