Spaniard missing since 1998 turns up in Italy
Monday, November 9, 2015 @ 11:09 AM
A SPANIARD who went missing 17 years ago and was given up for dead has 'reappeared' in Italy, but gone to ground again and cannot be traced.
Carlos Sánchez Ortiz de Salazar, originally from Bilbao in the Basque Country, left his last-known address in Cazalla de la Sierra (Sevilla province) on April 13, 1998 and nothing had been heard of him since.
A qualified doctor, he vanished at the age of 29 and, given the length of time that had passed since his disappearance, he was officially declared dead.
Now, a 46-year-old man who claims to be Carlos Sánchez has been found living as a hermit in a woods in Maremma, in the Tuscany area of Italy, between the Violina and Scarlino bays where he had built himself a refuge with a tent.
Local people had seen him a few times in the last 17 years, describing him as a 'calm person' who 'never wanted to talk to anyone'.
The man in question had in his possession a library card and a college card from the Faculty of Medicine at Sevilla University which showed he was the missing Spaniard.
Via the Italian missing persons organisation Penelope, Carlos Sánchez's mother and father were traced and travelled to Italy to find him, according to the association's leader Antonio La Scala, who met them at Rome's Fiumicino airport and took them to the site.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com