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9-year-old girl missing in Southwest Florida

Posted at 9:32 PM, May 30, 2016
and last updated 2016-05-31 04:04:43-04

A Southwest Florida community has come together to help search for missing 9-year-old girl.

Neighbors say Diana Alvares was very well-known in the area and her family doesn't believe she'd ran away.

The missing girl’s neighbors say she was always out and about.

"Every day they'd stop by. Her and her younger brother and her sister. Every day," says one neighbor who didn’t want to be identified.

But she says she always saw Alvares playing in the street near her home - and she was always careful.

"She never goes more than four to five houses. She's afraid to go in the woods. She's afraid to go anywhere near the major road. This is just so wrong," the neighbor said.

Crime scene tape marks the area where she was last seen.

Lee county deputies and FWC officers were on the ground and in the air using K9s and ATVs to search, but there is still no sign of her.

Neighbors saying they fear the worst.

"She was the one who took care of all the kids you know that were in our neighborhood," says neighbor Michael Brown.

Deputies have released a photo of Alvares.

Other neighbors are also putting up flyers hoping they can help find her soon.

Chelsea Urbanowski, who helped search for the missing girl, said, "We posted this on just about every business that was open today and everybody was really receptive. A lot of people had heard about her. I think a lot of people in this community wanna help find this girl and bring her home."