Esube “Izzy” Wondwossen, the 22-year-old Howard University senior whose disappearance prompted a dayslong search across the Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia area, has been found safe, authorities confirmed Saturday.
Wondwossen was located safely and is in good health, according to Arlington County police. Authorities have not disclosed where she was found or provided additional details about the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.
The news comes five days after Wondwossen was last seen on the morning of Sept. 15.
Her father had dropped her off at the Branch Avenue Metro Station in Prince George’s County, Maryland, around 7 a.m. for what he believed would be her usual commute to Howard University. According to the family, Wondwossen appeared to be in good spirits when he last saw her.
But Wondwossen never made it to Howard’s campus.
Police later determined that she had been seen at the Pentagon Metro Station in Arlington, Virginia. Her sister, Helina Wondwossen, also told local news outlets that her sister was seen getting off a Metro bus near Reading Avenue and Beauregard Street in Alexandria later that morning.
The family had been trying to understand why Wondwossen, a Howard senior who was looking forward to graduating, would have traveled to Alexandria. Her mother, Aida Endrias, previously said she discovered that location tracking on her daughter’s phone appeared to have been turned off.
The uncertainty surrounding Wondwossen’s whereabouts led her family to make an urgent public appeal for information as the search stretched into its fifth day.
“[I] just want to know she’s safe,” Helina previously told FOX 5, emphasizing that the disappearance was out of character for her sister.
Prince George’s County police had asked anyone with information about Wondwossen’s whereabouts to contact the department’s Missing Persons Unit. The department’s missing-persons portal now lists Wondwossen among its cases, while local outlets reported Saturday that she had been found safe.
The development brings an end to the immediate search for Wondwossen, though authorities have not said whether an investigation into the circumstances of her disappearance remains ongoing.
For now, the key update is that the Howard University student has been located and is reported to be in good health.
