28 June 2024 , 09:20
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Now into the 12th day of the major search operation, police are still determined to find missing Jay Slater.
However an expert warned several months before Jay's disappearance about the worrying scale of people who go missing in Tenerife, never to be found. Jay, a 19-year-old apprentice bricklayer from Lancashire, vanished in the morning of Monday, June 17 after attending the NRG festival on the island.
He extended his night out with two British men he'd met on his trip, and ended up back at their Airbnb rental, located just outside the village of Masca on the side of a mountain in the Rural de Teno National Park. He was last seen in a remote area close to the Mirador La Cruz de Hilda cafe, which is an epic 11-hour walk from where he was staying with friends the south of the island.
Jay Slater hasn't been seen since Monday, June 17 (Supplied)According to reports, Jay is just one of 11 people who have disappeared in Tenerife in the past six months. The Sun reports that local police were told two years ago that their resources were insufficient.
SOS Disappeared in Tenerife coordinator, Santiago Carlos Martín, said that "families feel abandoned" during hunts for their loved ones. Mr Martín, who leads a group of around 40 volunteers, told The Sun: "There are many who have disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased since the pandemic."
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The expert and his team have called for larger multidisciplinary teams to be on standby to help local police with searches, including teams such as health experts, psychologists and other professionals, who Mr Martín suggests would help provide more of an accurate picture as to why someone may have vanished.
Official data from the Spanish Ministry of the Interior states that between 2020 and 2023, at least 460 adults went missing in the Canary Islands, from a population of just 2.2million. Tenerife has the second-highest number of missing people in the whole of Spain, following Andalucia, which has a population four times larger at 8.5million.
Officers continue their search for Jay SlaterSpeaking in 2022, Mr Martin warned: "There are many disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased after the pandemic. We are at the head of the country, and we are not clear why. Perhaps the orography or the social structure have an influence, but we don't know."
The national president of SOS Disappeared, Joaquín Amills, also commented: "There are fewer resources here and to change that we all have to work together." Meanwhile, locals in the village of Masca have also noted similar disappearances in the area, usually involving hikers who get lost.
Speaking to The Independent, one woman, identified only by her first name, Anita, said: "We often have hikers go missing, every summer it is the same. Police come for a week and search and then they go – sometimes it can take months for a body to be found as the mountains are too difficult to search.
"People have said there was a sighting of him here, but no one knows anything – his family came here but there’s nothing to show he is here, as far as I know, no shop or cafe has seen him." It has been reported that Jay is "unlikely" to be found alive if he got lost in the treacherous Tenerife mountains.
Locals say hikers often go missing on the island (Civil Guard)Spanish cops have vowed not to give up their major operation, which has included a scan of remote terrain, with helicopters and sniffer dogs deployed. Speaking on Day 11 of the search, a police spokesman said: "The Civil Guard is continuing to search for the young British man who disappeared, carrying out inspections of all the paths, trails and ravines belonging to the village of Masca within the municipality of Buenavista del Norte."
On Wednesday, the force released footage showing officers moving on foot in a mountainous area of the island. A well-placed source told the Mirror: "No one at the moment is talking about the search being brought to an end, even though it's very unlikely Jay has survived if he got lost in the mountains in the way we were told he did.
"There will be a point when the operation that's taking place at the moment has to at least be scaled back but right now the search teams appear to have decided they want to give themselves more time."