A man whose brother is feared dead after going missing in Spain while on holiday has issued a chilling update on his sibling.
John George, also known as John Hardy, was last in touch with his family on December 14 during the Alicante stay. The 37-year-old was reported missing four days later when he failed to board his flight home to Northern Ireland, BelfastLive reported.
A huge search has been launched with as many as 50 family and friends travelling to Spain. His brother Darren said: “Someone knows where John is.” He went on: “They need to give it up, and they need to give the location, whether it’s done anonymously.
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The family has been left heartbroken as John, right, remains missing
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“This isn’t going to stop and certainly we’re not going to go away until we get John’s body. We get John’s body, we’re on the next flight out of here. Somebody has answers and we will not leave Spain without John’s body.
“A lot of people are over showing us their support. We also can see the support from back home, which is fantastic, and that’s what’s giving us the energy and the strength to actually go forward. The searches can be very frustrating as we’re getting no answers at the end of them. It’s very frustrating and we are being left very angry.”
John spoke to his father by phone on December 14 when his family said he sounded “distressed”, and was urged by his father to travel home immediately. Members from K9 Search And Rescue NI, a volunteer canine search team, joined the wide-scale operation to find John, and officers from the PSNI are liaising with the family as well as authorities in Spain.
Search and rescue teams in Alicante
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Darren added: “John was happy-go-lucky guy. John would have rang you at any time of the day or night so when we didn’t get the phone call from John within two days, we knew something was wrong.
“He was a very good boxer when he was younger, and was an all-Ireland champion. He’s a normal, average guy. Don’t get me wrong, John had his troubles: John was a drug addict, it took over John’s life.
“John would never have missed Christmas with his boys. My parents are completely broken people. My dad’s had a heart attack and my mum’s had two strokes. They’re just two broken-hearted parents looking for their son. It’s absolutely hateful. We are a normal family. It’s torture.”
Members of the K9 team travelled back to Northern Ireland on Sunday following a five-day search in the Alicante region. Seven search technicians and their Labrador retriever Rocko had taken part in the operation.
The K9 rescue team helping looking for the missing 37-year-old
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Team member Gabriel Walker said they were joined by a Portuguese-based search and rescue team, including their dog Lobo. Mr Walker said there was a huge amount of planning and preparation ahead of their search.
He added: “The search area was a mixture of rural and urban areas, and that included the likes of scrubland, forestry, gorges and water, those were all searched by our search technicians on foot, as well as the two dogs and the drone. That was searching in the heat, from dusk till dawn during those four days.
“Missing person searches are bread and butter, so we utilised the exact same approach and skills that we would use to the missing person searches that we attend locally, but this was in a brand new climate that was new to all of us.
“That did come with its own challenges. The heat was definitely one. We’re not used to working in that type of heat and it did put a lot of strain on us, particularly on the dogs. It is a different type of terrain, but we just defaulted to our training, and it served us really well.”