A Spanish soccer fan travelling by foot from Madrid to Doha for subsequent month’s World Cup has gone lacking in Iran.
The household of Santiago Sanchez, an skilled trekker, former paratrooper and die-hard soccer fan has not been heard from since crossing into Iran three weeks in the past, his household mentioned Monday, stirring fears about his destiny in a rustic at present convulsed by mass unrest.
Mr Sanchez, 41, was final seen in Iraq after climbing by way of 15 international locations and extensively sharing his journey on a well-liked Instagram account over the past 9 months. But his exuberant posts stopped all of the sudden on 1 October, the day he entered Iran from the nation’s unstable northwestern border.
Sanchez’s household says his each day WhatsApp updates stopped that day as properly. Weeks later, they worry the worst.
“We are deeply worried, we can’t stop crying, my husband and I,” his mom, Celia Cogedor, instructed The Associated Press.
Sanchez’s mother and father have reported him as lacking to Spain’s nationwide police and the international ministry. But Spanish authorities say they haven’t any details about his whereabouts, including that the Spanish ambassador to Tehran was dealing with the matter.
Iran was his final cease earlier than reaching Qatar.
The largest anti-government protests in over a decade are at present happening in Iran. Demonstrations erupted in September over the dying of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl taken into custody by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to the nation’s strict Islamic gown code.
Mr Sanchez had been trekking whereas carrying a small suitcase in a wheeled cart, filled with little greater than a tent, water purification tablets and a fuel range for his 11 months on the highway.
He mentioned he needed to learn the way others lived by residing amongst them earlier than reaching Qatar in time for Spain’s first match on 23 November, in opposition to Costa Rica.
The day earlier than he disappeared, Sanchez had breakfast with a information in Sulaymaniyah, a Kurdish metropolis in northeastern Iraq. Sanchez’s mother and father mentioned he had warned them he’d briefly lose web entry after reaching Iran.
Source: www.impartial.co.uk