Missing Briton, 70, is found dead in the Spanish Pyrenees, four days after he disappeared while hiking a mountain
- The victim from London disappeared on Monday, prompting searches by the rescue team
A missing British hiker has been found dead in the Spanish Pyrenees four days after he disappeared while hiking a mountain.
Police and other emergency services have been searching for the 70-year-old Londoner, whose name has been withheld, since Monday.
Mountain search and rescue experts from the Guardia Civil’s Greim unit, the same type of police specialists searching for missing Jay Slater in Tenerife, were involved.
Today it emerged that the victim had been found dead near the Aspe peak, a mountain in the western Pyrenees of Huesca on the western side of the Aragon Valley.
The 2,678 meter high mountain peak towers above the Spanish ski resort Candanchu and the Somport Pass on the border with France.
The gruesome discovery was made around 1pm yesterday, although the information was only made public earlier today.
File photo of the Pyrenees of Huesca. Teams had been searching for the Londoner since Monday
The three Greim officers who found the body of the anonymous hiker alerted a nearby police helicopter so that the hiker could be taken to a nearby mountain hut and handed over to funeral home employees.
It is believed that the dead man was walking between the Lizara and Candanchu mountain huts.
The Guardia Civil in Huesca is said to have received a message from the British Interpol office in Manchester. It contained the coordinates of an SOS wristband that the hiker was wearing.
Images released by the Guardia Civil showed the operation to rescue the body of the tragic Briton.
It is believed that experts from the French police also took part in the operation to find the hiker after the alarm was raised.
In November 2020, British hiker Esther Dingled disappeared on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.
Her remains were found in July 2021 near the spot where she disappeared.
Esther, 37, went walking from the village of Benasque, about 280 kilometres (175 miles) east of where the British pensioner’s body was found.
It was not immediately clear today what had led to the latest tragedy.