Second American disappears in Greece as deaths and missing persons rise

Lina Portman3 weeks ago

0 3 minutes read

A 70-year-old tourist is the second American to disappear from a small Greek island this week, amid a wave of deaths and disappearances among hikers heading out in extreme temperatures – but the latest disappearance appears unrelated in the heatwave.

The man, who has not yet been publicly identified, was last seen on Tuesday on Mathraki, a remote island about 40 km northwest of the island of Corfu, according to reports.

He was staying with a Greek-American friend, who came home Thursday to find the door to the house open, the lights and air conditioning on, but the man was missing, ABC News reported. His identity card and travel documents were also missing.

The friend reported the American missing.

The man was last seen on Tuesday at a tavern with two tourists who have since left the country, community leader Spyros Argyros told Greek media outlet eKathimerini.

Mathraki Island is a popular destination for Greek Americans during the summer, but has only about 50 permanent residents and no police or coast guard station. Officers from Corfu had to be called in to assist in the investigation.

Rescue teams searched the Ionian Sea on Thursday, but halted operations on Friday due to bad weather and were expected to continue on Saturday, officials said.

This suspicious disappearance follows the disappearance of Albert Calibet, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, from the island of Amorgos, the easternmost of the Cyclades islands south of the Greek mainland.

Calibet, 59, remains missing after failing to return from a planned four-hour trek across the island to meet a friend for lunch on Tuesday. A massive search to find him in the rocky terrain where he was hiking, involving drones, a helicopter and even local shepherds, has so far proved fruitless, ABC News reported.

None of Calibet's belongings had been found as of Friday.

The veteran hiker, originally from Hermosa Beach, California, had dual Greek citizenship and visited Amorgos almost every year for the past decade.

He left amid a “high temperature warning” that lasted until Thursday and even closed the acropolis. Surveillance video reportedly showed him in a parking lot going for a hike.

“We're sick to our stomachs, knowing he's out there somewhere,” his girlfriend Debbie Leshane told ABC. She said he called her as he was leaving for the hike, then sent her a photo of the trailhead sign. That was the last time she heard from him.

The two missing Americans are part of a wave of tourists who have disappeared in recent weeks on the vast Greek islands.

A Dutch traveler who went missing on June 9 on the island of Samos, on the Turkish coast, was found dead on Saturday, according to reports, bringing the total number of tourists who have died this month to five.

Dr Michael Mosley, a British doctor and television star, was found dead on June 9 after disappearing from the island of Symi, about 150 miles south of Samos, four days earlier.

Mosley, 67, took the wrong route while hiking and collapsed right next to a marina, in a location where his body could not easily be located, according to reports.

A 67-year-old Dutch tourist, a 70-year-old French tourist and an 80-year-old man also died in the heat, all on the island of Crete, between June 5 and 13.

Two French women, aged 73 and 64, disappeared on Friday from the island of Sikinos, in the Cyclades, local media reported.

Authorities fear tourists are unaware of how risky the hike is in the sweltering heat.

Tourists “often deviate” and get lost, according to Dimitris Katatzis, head of the Samos rescue team. “We saw some [of foreigners] walk a trail in 41C [106 degrees Fahrenheit] without a hat,” he told local media. “This defies logic.”