Maeve McDermott

USATODAY

Outrage is building on social media over reports about the uptick of missing black and Latina girls in the D.C. area, with Twitter users circulating the hashtag #MissingDcGirls to raise awareness of the disappearances.

According to city police, 501 missing-child cases (many of them for black and Latino kids) were logged in the first three months of the year, with 22 still open. To put that number in perspective, there were 2,242 missing-child cases for all of 2016.

Celebrities including Sean 'Diddy' Combs, who attended college in the area, and Ava DuVernay leveraged their popular accounts to amplify the search for the missing girls on Thursday and Friday, in addition to voicing frustration over the story's perceived lack of media coverage.

According to the Associated Press, black lawmakers including Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La. and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., have called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey to “devote the resources necessary to determine whether these developments are an anomaly or whether they are indicative of an underlying trend that must be addressed.”

Where are they? Outrage over perceived increase in missing black, Latina girls in D.C.