Guadeloupe: a vacationer found alive in the forest six days after his disappearance

He had been missing for six days. A holidaymaker from Normandy and wanted since Thursday evening in Guadeloupe has been found “weakened, disoriented and not having all his wits” Wednesday morning “by a hiker”. He was in the Sofaïa sector in Sainte-Rose, a fairly busy wooded area, we learned from the gendarmerie.

“He was found near the waterfall, in nature”, told AFP Captain Rachid Boumlil, second in command of the Pointe-à-Pitre Gendarmerie company. “A hiker heard a noise and saw this man emerge from nature and come towards her to be rescued”. The 69-year-old man was evacuated to the CHU without being able to provide an explanation for the days spent in the forest.

After the alert launched by the wife of the disappeared, gone for a walk alone, the gendarmes had deployed significant resources. “The Helicopter” and “many people on foot, soldiers from the gendarmerie, hikers, trail runners having been on the multiple tracks up to fairly large distances, dog teams from the fire brigade on Friday and Saturday”, as well as “hikers” sensitized on the car park at the start of the trace crisscrossed the area daily, explained the captain.

“He was in the sector where we imagined him” and had at this place “plenty of water thanks to the waterfall and various streams”, he says. “It is difficult to understand today that we did not meet this person who could still move earlier” and his hearing should “to better understand the reasoning in this type of situation, to better guide research”, he added.

The man, who “was unable to answer” to the questions of the gendarmes “and to have a clear speech”, will be heard “subsequently, to try to determine what his journey was”, concluded the captain. An investigation was opened for “disturbing disappearance”.