Guwahati, June 27: Twenty-six children, lost during Ambubachi mela here last week, have been found. Some of them have been reunited with their families while the rest have been housed in childcare homes.

Nineteen of the children were found by Child Friendly Guwahati, an NGO which provides emergency outreach service for children in need of care. An official of the NGO said the children were found in and around Kamakhya temple where Ambubachi mela was held from June 22-26. All of them have been given shelter at Snehalaya, a rehabilitation centre for children at Dhirenpara here.

"We had set up a rescue booth on the premises of Kamakhya temple and our volunteers found these children during Ambubachi mela. The children are aged between four and 14 years. Most of them are from Bihar and West Bengal," said Jharna Chakravarty, a member of the NGO.

She said they have started working with the police from today to reunite the children with their families. Their volunteers will thoroughly check the documents submitted to claim a child before handing a child over to the claimant.

The NGO said some of the children about whom some information is available are Moon Gogoi, 10, from Tinsukia district of Upper Assam, Paban Kumar and Kalu Kumar from Bihar, Rahul Ghose from Alipurduar in West Bengal, Tomi Ali, 7, from Golaghat district of Assam, and Karishma Das, 12, and Priyanka Das, 12, from Guwahati.

Regarding the children about whom there is no information yet, the NGO said it will first present them before the Children Welfare Committee of Assam and then take steps like advertising in the media and sending their details to police stations to locate their families.

Childline Guwahati, another emergency outreach service for children in need of care, found seven children who had got separated from their families in the mela. Four of them have been reunited with their families after proper verification while the families of three, Sahabudin Ali, 10, Sujata Johar, 12, and Anjali Patir, 12, have not been traced yet. Sahabudin is from Bihar while the two girls are from Guwahati. Police said the girls have not been able to tell them which area of Guwahati they live in.

The three children are housed in shelter homes. Sahabuddin is in Government Children's Home at Fatasil Ambari here while Sujata and Anjali are in Kalyani Niwas at Rupnagar here. "We are trying to reunite these children with their families. After presenting them in front of Children Welfare Committee, we will try and gather information about them," said Paban Haloi, an official of Childline.

A police official said efforts were on to rescue other children, if any, lost during the mela. "NGOs are working in this regard. We are cooperating with them," Mosco Saikia, an official of Kamakhya police outpost said.

There was a record footfall for Ambubachi mela this year. Tourism minister Himanata Biswa Sarma claimed 35 lakh devotees came for the mela. "Last year, around 15 lakh devotees came to Kamakhya during Ambubachi mela. The number doubled this year," he told The Telegraph .

The head priest of Kamakhya temple, Mahesh Sarma, attributed this year's surge of devotees to the huge promotion campaign carried out by the state government.