You and your family

How can you find your family again?

You don’t know where your parents or your brothers and sisters are? Your family doesn’t know where you are? The tracing service of the Red Cross will help you.

You have to write a request to search for your family and relatives to the Red Cross. The request is called “search request”. Your legal representative and your care worker will help you to write the request. The service is for free.

The Red Cross will try to get in contact with your family. It will take a long time. You yourself can do something as well: Ask other people, ask friends, ask people from your country.

Sometimes the Red Cross is not successful and persons are not found. Sometimes the answer is sad, for example if persons are dead or ill.

The Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum wants to know where your family is. The Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum will search for your family. The law says that you have to help the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum in this search. Ask your legal representative. Tell the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum if you don’t want to search for your family. Explain why.

Is your family allowed to come to Austria?

You want your parents to be with you? You have got the right to live together with your parents. This is called “family reunification”. There are many requirements. For example: You must be younger than 18 years when asking for family reunification. And you must have asylum or, for 3 years already, subsidiary protection in Austria.

You have applied for asylum, then turned 18 years and afterwards received a positive decision? Contact the Red Cross as soon as possible, they give you more information.

The process of family reunification is very complicated and can take a long time. Your family has to apply for reunification with the Austrian Consulate. For help please talk to your legal representative or care worker. They will help.

For more information on family reunification go to: www.meinefamile.roteskreuz.at
For more information on the tracing service go to: www.roteskreuz.at/i18n/en/tracing-services
See if somebody is searching for you. With your photo you can search for your family: https://familylinks.icrc.org/europe/en/