Jay Slater: Missing Tenerife teenager was on holiday with friends

A British teenager who went missing in Tenerife was on his first holiday with his friends, his mother said.

Debbie Duncan's son Jay Slater, 19, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, has not been seen or heard from for more than 48 hours.

He had flown to the Canary Islands with friends to attend the NRG music festival.

Search teams, relatives and friends are searching for the apprentice mason in the mountainous Rural Teno National Park.

Ms Duncan told the PA news agency: “It's just traumatic and it doesn't feel real. It's just horrible, it's horrible.

“He's just a great person that everyone wanted to be with. He's handsome, he's a popular guy.”

She added that the police who carried out the search had been “very efficient”.

Social media posts from Sunday evening showed Jay, dressed in a gray t-shirt with green spots on the shoulders, having fun.

Jay's friend Lucy Mae – who had gone to the island with him to attend the NRG music festival – said Jay had gone to stay with people he had met at a party in the north. west of the island.

She said he called her shortly before 9 a.m. Monday to tell her he was trying to make the 10-hour trip back to his accommodation in the south of the island, but needed water and that he only had 1% autonomy left. his telephone.

The call was then disconnected and Jay has not been seen or heard from since.

Its last known location was on a trail in the mountainous Rural Teno National Park, in the northwest of the island.

Ms Duncan told the BBC: “I haven't slept at all, it's like it's not real.

“It was his first vacation abroad with his friends and I was encouraging him to go, I told him: ‘You’re going to have a great time’.”

Ms Duncan said local police and mountain rescue teams were “working around the clock” searching for her son, including using drones and dogs.

British journalist Chris Elkington, editor of the Canarian Weekly, told the BBC that the terrain at Mr Slater's last known location was “harsh”.

He said: “It’s a rural park where there are lots of hiking trails, it’s very mountainous, quite sparse, quite arid.

“Quite desert in many ways, with very deep ravines and valleys.

“It’s certainly a place you wouldn’t want to be in normal conditions without proper footwear, and especially without water.”

Speaking about the response to her disappearance, Mr Elkington said: “It's unheard of, it's incredible the support, not only from her friends and family, but also from local expat residents here and obviously Spanish residents now too.”

But Jay's mother, Ms Duncan, said she was becoming increasingly desperate.

“He’s just a friendly, bubbly guy with hundreds of friends who enjoy being around him,” she said.

“He's beautiful, he's beautiful. He's my baby.”

Accrington and Rossendale College, where Jay was completing his apprenticeship, said: “We are deeply concerned by the recent news regarding one of our apprentices, Jay Slater, who went missing while on holiday in Tenerife.

“The safety and well-being of our students is of the utmost importance to us, and our thoughts at this worrying time are with Jay’s family and friends.”

A Foreign Office spokesperson told the BBC: “We are supporting the family of a British man missing in Spain and are in contact with the local authorities.”