Aruba's Government Asks for Help in Search

ORANJESTAD, Aruba – The Aruban government called on thousands of civil servants and tourists Monday to join the local police and American FBI in the search for a missing Alabama teen as two men were being held in connection with her disappearance.

Natalee Holloway (search), 18, vanished a week ago while on a five-day trip to the Caribbean island with more than 100 other classmates to celebrate their graduation from Mountain Brook High School (search) near Birmingham, Ala.

Authorities on the Dutch Caribbean island requested a special FBI diving team to search waters with rough currents, Aruba Attorney General Caren Janssen said.

The Dutch Caribbean island's government on Monday asked most of the 4,000 public employees to meet at a sports stadium in the central community of Santa Cruz at 2 p.m. EDT to be briefed on "a systematic search," police commander Trudy Hassell said.

"We hope there will be thousands," Hassell said in the capital, Oranjestad. "This effort is a national effort. We feel with the family."

Aruban police in unmarked cars accompanied by FBI agents made a pre-dawn raid at 5 a.m. Sunday, rousting two suspects aged 28 and 30 from their beds.

An AP photographer watched as the rumpled men — one from the De Vuiyst housing project for poorer islanders and another from an average home in southeast San Nicolas — emerged without resistance, hands cuffed behind their backs.

Police searched the homes and emerged with what looked like a metal safe deposit box and a garbage bag of clothing.

Police spokesman Edwin Comemencia said that authorities had not ruled out the possibility that other people were involved. The two men in custody were not among three others described Saturday by police as "persons of interest."

"I think there are more suspects ... we're going to arrest more" people in connection with the case, Comemencia told FOX News on Monday.

Authorities declined to comment whether there was a relationship between the suspects and other three, earlier described as students — two Surinamese and a native of the Netherlands — who told police they dropped off Holloway at her hotel around 2 a.m. on May 30. Hotel employees, however, say that security cameras did not record her return.

Comemencia also said that he didn't believe Holloway ever returned to her hotel. "The investigation looks like, that night, she never returned to her hotel," Comemencia told FOX News.

Janssen declined to provide specific charges, saying the case will go before a judge within 48 hours to determine whether they can be legally held. She said authorities had not found any of Holloway's belongings at the suspects' homes.

"The charges have a relationship with the disappearance," Janssen said. "There is a reasonable suspicion they may be involved."

Authorities impounded three vehicles found at the two homes, and a team of more than a dozen FBI agents helping with the investigation will help perform forensic testing on them, police said.

"We hope she's alive," police commissioner Jan van der Straaten said. "Everyday I see the light at the end of the tunnel." Van der Straaten called on the public to be patient because the investigation will "take time."

Neighbors described the two detained men as security guards who worked at a hotel closed for renovation near where the teen was staying at the Holiday Inn. Deputy police chief Gerold Dompig confirmed that the suspects were security guards.

At least 70 people showed up for a prayer vigil Sunday evening at California Lighthouse on Aruba's gusty northwest point. They sang a hymn and listened to a brief sermon by Rev. Larry Waymire, 50, of Lexington, Tennessee, who has lived in Aruba for six years.

"This is a trying time, not only for Aruba but for the world as a whole," Waymire said during the 10-minute ceremony. "This has touched the lives of millions of people around the world."

The lighthouse, built in the early 20th century, was named for a steamship that wrecked off the island's coast and overlooks a dive site and one of the beaches that Holloway was reported to have visited.

Hundreds of Arubans and American residents and tourists have joined the hunt, upset that Holloway's disappearance could mar the image of this tranquil island. About 500,000 Americans visited Aruba last year.

When asked why the teen's disappearance had reverberated throughout the world, 54-year-old Bill Creamer of Fitchburg, Mass., said the impossible had happened.

"It can't happen here and it did. On a smaller scale it's 9/11," said Creamer, who has come to the island with his wife, Nancy, for the past seven years.

Holloway spent her last night at a beach concert featuring Boyz II Men and Lauryn Hill at Surfside beach in southern Aruba, Tourism Minister Edison Briesen said. About 8,000 people attended the concert, which was part of the third annual Soul Beach Music Festival (search).

She then ate and danced at Carlos 'N Charlie's bar and restaurant. She did not show up for her return flight hours later, and police found her passport in her hotel room with her packed bags.

Authorities were overheard on a police frequency Sunday evening issuing a bulletin to stop a rented white Toyota in connection with the disappearance of the 5-foot-4-inch blonde. Dompig declined to confirm it.

The Aruban government and local tourism organizations have offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to Holloway's rescue. Her family and benefactors in Alabama have offered another $30,000.

Holloway's disappearance has shaken a sense of safety many Arubans took for granted in an island of 72,000 people that saw one murder and six rapes last year. This year, there have been two murders and three rapes, police said.

Holloway, a straight-A student, had earned a full scholarship at the University of Alabama and planned to study premed, said her uncle, Paul Reynolds.

Many feared the worst when authorities said they found a blood-soaked mattress at a beach in eastern Aruba on Sunday, but it turned out to be animal blood.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.