FORT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. – On Sunday, Broward County announced its Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is working diligently to return abandoned items that were left in the airport’s terminals after the tragic shooting by Esteban Santiago that left five people dead and another six wounded.

A professional company, along with airport personnel, started the process of identifying ownership of personal items. They have been working to return the items to individuals. The Airport has collected over 23,000 items; therefore the redistribution to their rightful owners will take time.

By Monday afternoon, nearly 1,000 items had been returned by the baggage company. The airlines have also returned thousands of items to passengers, and thousands more are in various stages of processing. Items are being returned through the following methods: If your luggage is tagged with an airline or identification tag, FLL is coordinating with the airlines to return items and owners will be contacted for returns. If items have identification, the airport will contact owners directly.

A website is being created for items that do not have an apparent owner. Items will be posted online so owners can identify their belonging(s) and provide contact information necessary for reclaiming. A series of questions will be asked of alleged owners to identify the items. The website address will be announced as soon as it is available.

Information collected from those that call the toll free number is also being used to match baggage and personal items with their rightful owners.

The process of returning items to their owners is already in progress. FLL is requesting passengers please be patient since this is a challenging process and returning items to their rightful owners is the priority.

The items have been sorted and are in a secure area where airport and baggage company teams are working 24 hours a day to return them to their owners. Airport spokesperson Greg Meyer said “We are moving through the baggage retrieval process as quickly as possible, but it does take time to ensure that items are returned only to their rightful owners.”

Keep checking www.broward.org/Pages/Welcome.aspx or www.broward.org/airport/Pages/Default.aspx for updates, or follow FLL on Twitter @FLLFLYER. For other incident-related questions, call the Broward County Call Center at 866-435-9355.