Missing persons in the Himalaya

In this page i will try to have information of missing people in Nepal or the Himalaya. It make sense that you look at it, after coming back from a trekking tour or a travel. You might have met the missing person and know about her and her plans. This could be decisive Information. As the aim is focused to get “fresh”information I will only have write about actual cases.

On the bottom of the page you can read what you could do yourself to help people tracing you , if you get lost .

Missing or lost people in The Himalaya

Missing (in Langtang??) April 2011

My brother Paulius Zavadckis (19 years old from Lithuania) may have gone missing in Nepal. He went to Nepal to volunteer for the Helambu Project in the Gangkharka village on the 27th February 2011, but soon after that has left the project and we-his family haven‘t heard from him since 7th March - the last time he e-mailed us. Up till now we are not sure whether something has happened to him or whether he decided not to/was unable to keep in touch with us. As much as we with the help of the Honorary Consul of Lithuania in Nepal can track his traces, Paulius went back to Kathmandu from Gangkharka on the 5^th of March, on the 7^th of March he was in Pokhara and on the 8^th of March he was heading to Panga. About a week later some villagers said they may have seen Paulius back in the area of Gangkharka and that he wanted to head for the Ama Yangri Temple or just to wander in the forests of Langtang. So some trekkers may have met him or seen him on the way. Any information about Paulius would be very valuable and extremely appreciated.

For contact my e-mail is sima-z@hotmail.com and phone is +447532174021

Missing in Langtang april 2010

Aubrey Sacco a 23-year old american girl is missing in the Langtang. her last contact was an email from Sybrubensi the 20th of april. if you have been in Langtang End of april pleas go the the site http://www.trekinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24726 where you will find mor information and a photo of her.

December 2008

Julian Wynne is missing since 22 of December 2008 in the Everest area

 Default brother is missing
My brother Julian Wynne, English, 32 has not made contact with any one and we are worried. He climbed the Gokyo Ri area, and safely decended, this was around the 21st December. He had then planned to go to EBC. We (his family) do not know if he was on his own or had met up with other trekers. Julian has now not made any contact for almost 4 weeks.
What I am wanting to know is are the weather conditions dangerous at this time? how safe would the route be? I know accidents are always possible, but generally speaking. I'm afraid I don't know the names of the areas on the way to EBC or the trail he would have taken, can any one shed any light on this? is 4 weeks too long to still be treking, or do many people trek for many more weeks in this area. Would the trek to EBC be frequented this time of year by many? if he had been ill or injured on the trail would he have been found by other trekers?
The Embassy has been alerted, statements have been made to interpol. I would like to ask experienced trekers in this area, should we be acting to get the helicopter out at this stage?
If anyone has recently returned from EBC did you see or meet up with Julian?
Thanks
Rachael

If you have any information about julian please contact the family . If oyu know anyone who has been in the everst area duing Xmas time, please inform him about the missing Julian. Maybe they could provide some information .

  Julian was possibly wearing a pale blue North Face fleece or softshell jacket

if you have any knowledge about the plans of Julian or of places where he has been after the 21th of december please contact the family using gregcrowter@yahoo .com findjulianwynne@hotmail.co.uk  
further threads and information on
  http://www.trekinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23397 , 
& http://www.findjuw.org.uk/

Update 3.2 The husband of julian sister and his friend Lee have been searching in The Gokyo valley. They stopped the search without result and are returning to Kathmandu.

“I'm afraid that the search has not bought us any news of Julian. The search party set up camp in the Cho La region and spent 4 days searching every possible trail surrounding the area, as this was where Lee-(his trekking companion) separated. They then returned to Namche to discover Julian had stayed in Dragnag the eveing after he left Lee, and told the owner he was heading to Phortse the next day, the search party went back to retrek this route paying particular attention alondside the river bank, in case Julian had fallen off the main trail, as in the case mentioned above by "still trekkin" http://www.lonelyplanet .com/thorntre...23102&tstart=0[/quote]
We don't know if Julian ever made it to Phortse, many of the lodges are closed so we cannot check menu books or ask owners. A search was also made on the trek to Tengboche. Posters have been distributed through all these areas, Taan have sent memos to all the trekking agencies asking them to be on the lookout for Julian/information. There have been radio broadcasts in Nepal to appeal for information, and finally now local newspapers are running the story.
The search party are now making their way back to Kathmandu. We are all feeling devastated.
Rachael, Julian's sister. http://www.trekinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23397&page=7

Oli has put the following information in the thread os trekinfo.com:

Julian and Lee (his trekking companion) were staying in the Namaste Lodge in Gokyo when I arrived. I didn't really have a conversation with either of them and they left the next day. I met Lee a few days later in Namche and he told me then that Julian was missing.

They had set out to cross Cho La together on (I think) the 22nd. Apparently they had some differing ideas on the path to take up the pass and had decided to go their separate ways. Lee told me that he had looked back and seen Julian sitting on a rock by the path, then later seen 2+1 people walking away from the pass and had (not unreasonably) assumed that his friend was now in the company of a pair of trekkers they'd seen descending from the pass earlier. Lee continued over the pass and returned to Namche expecting to meet up with Julian there a few days hence. Unfortunately that was the last time that anyone has seen or heard of Julian.

Lee waited in Namche for several days. Julian had left camera & ipod cables at the lodge in Namche but did not collect them. Lee had been waiting by the trail coming into Namche and quizzed most of the trekkers coming down as to whether they had seen Julian. Some messages were sent up the trail to the villages & lodges that he might have passed through, but to no avail.

Weather conditions at the time were quite good, there was no snow in the Gokyo valley whilst we were there, just a very light dusting of snow in Namche on the 25th, but it was getting colder and late in the season. I believe that the lodges on either side of Cho La were about to close for the winter, a few days later there might be no lodges between Gokyo/Machermo and Lobuche/Pheriche and few (if any) people crossing the pass. There were far few trekkers around than in peak season, but there were still a fair number walking the trails.

I don't think that Julian crossed Cho La, he didn't go back to Gokyo and I didn't see any sign of him one the way to Namche. Perhaps he might have gone down the east side of the Gokyo valley to Phortse, a few other people were using that trail. If he had an accident on the trail he likely would have been found fairly soon, but had he been away off the trail then he would be lost for some time.

I saw Lee again once or twice in Kathmandu in the first week of January and he told me there was still no sign of Julian, he had been in contact with Julian's mum & Racheal but they had not heard from him. By this time Julian's cash would be running out and the prospect was not looking good. There really wasn't anything that I could suggest that Lee wasn't doing already (notifying the trial checkpoints & embassy etc).
 

if you have any knowledge about the plans of Julian or of places where he has been after the 21th of december please contact the family using gregcrowter@yahoo .com findjulianwynne@hotmail.co.uk or send me an Email at namaste(at)nepal-dia.de

further threads and infrormation on

http://www.trekinfo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23397 ,

http://www.findjuw.org.uk/

Kristina Kovacevic was found dead in a ravine near Dole. When her sister Karolin reached Namche Bazaar, police told her imidiatly, that they had found the body. Dole is on the way to Gokyo. Till now it is unclear if it was an accident or a crime.

Kristina from Germany send an Email on march13th from namche bazar. Since then, no other mesage was received. As she had planed to meet her friend Silke begin of April in Bali but did not come, her sister Karolin and her friend Silke ask for your help.

Kristina is 41 years old, has brown hair and is chubby.

She has a lot of travel experience on her own. She planned to come back march 20 to namche bazaar and the go antother 2 weeks to the wilderness?? it is not known where this should have been.

If you have meet her somewhere please contact her sister Karolin or her friend Silke

 dragon1314@yahoo.com oder Silke@sinkenken.de 

17.5 The sister was told by police from Namche, that they had fond the body in a ravine near Dole.

15.5 The sister of Carolin is going to Lukhla to beginn the search for her sister in Namche.

15.5 A french woman reported, that she had met Kristina the 6 th march in Junbesi, which is on the Jiri-namche trail. So Kristina walked to namche. Probably she continued to gokyo, as this would be a 7 day trek.

Mai 8: The Namche youth Group find out, where Kristina had stayed in Namche. there was still a bag of her which she had not collected. This means that she has not come back. see more under http://www.namcheyouthgroup.org/pages/28/index.htm

more pictures of Kristna

Pictures from a nepaltrek in 2005

see aLSO THE LINK http://com4.runboard.com/bgarethkochlostinnepal.fmissingtravellers.t16

To women murdered in Nagarjun Forest /Shivapuri-Nagarjun Park near Kathmandu

Céline Henry disappeared in September 2005, Sabine Grueneklee only six weeks later in October. Both women were last seen in Nagarjun Forest (aka Rani Ban). After extensive searches also by German and French policeteams and their searchdogs, the body of Mrs. Grueneklee was discovered in N.F. in February 2006. And only in November 2006, 14 months after her disappearance, were the remains of Mrs. Henry discovered there as well. Read more details in the Nepali Times, Issue 322 of November 10, 2006
www.nepalitimes.com.np/issue/2006/11/10/Nation/12758

In August 2007 the Nepalese government decided to integrate Nagarjun Forest in Shivapuri National Park. As of January 2009 the jungle where both European tourists lost their lives in the autumn of 2005, is called Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park.

German Sabine Grueneklee (2005)

Sabine from Munich was last seen the 16th of October and did not come to the airport the 18th. to meet her friend Dolan

She was last seen in Nagarjun forest reserve, a small fenced national park situated north west of Kathmandu.

Her body was later found in the Nagarjun forest and brought back to Germany

See the details on the website http://www.hasenfus.com/sabine/

or doolanpeter@yahoo.co.uk

  We are looking for our daughter.

 Theacher , french woman , born on 28 th june 1972 , 5.08 feet , short and brown hairs , brown eyes .

 Missing since the 3 rd september 2005 .

Back then, she was located at KATMANDU, lonely, having worked on a construction site of the NIFC to Hetauda. (From 19th to 29th August 2005)

She has gone to French embassy in Katmandu to obtain the address of French associations which could welcome her as volunteer in Nepal. She got in touch with the association "Chantal Mauduit Namaste" but did not follow up.

 The last hotel where Celine stayed was the PILGRIM'S GUEST HOUSE in the district of Thamel in Katmandu. In the daytime of her disappearance, Celine let know to the desk clerk of the hotel that she went out for a walk near Katmandu, by saying to him: "see you this evening"

To date, she has never reappeared in the hotel and all her luggages are still there.

 It seems, according to the testimony of Katia Bellengier (back in France since then) who has worked with her on the construction site to Hetauda and stayed in the same hotel as Celine until August 31st, that she was "tracked down" in the street on August 31st, by a man speaking French .

Her body was later found and indentified in Nagarjun Forest

What you can do for yourself

Trekking is one of the most beatiful things to enjoy and surely a great part of the pleasure is, that you will be in very remote areas.

The embasys recomend that you allways go at least with two people, but I myself have been quite often just on my own in barren regions.

Unfortuonnaly every year a few personns go missing on their travel or trek in Nepal. The problem is, that it takes normally a long time befor relatives or friends realize that something is wrong, as it is just normal to have no kontakt for weeks while trekking. And it is very difficult to know then where the personn has exactly been trekking . And no lodge owner can remember even after some days a face of one of these many trekkers who has visited his lodge. (Could you recognise the porters who have been with you in the same lodge even two days later?)

Sometimes missing people just have decided to go to India and to stop to communicate with friends and family, but there have been also fatal accidents or even trekkers murdered (very few)

If your are trekking one of the common treks you find in every lodge the meal ordering book. In this book every order is written and it is the base for the bill, so the lodge -owners take care of this book.

Most people just write their first name (like I did till now)

I suggest that everyone writes his full name, the date and in the morning where he is planning to go.

Like this, a potential search would be far easyer and faster.

I will do this on all my future treks.

If you are trekking in the Everest area look for the Trekkers Intention book. It was initiated by David Donaldson and Donlad Bason and distributed to many lodges in the khumbu area by the namche youth group http://www.namcheyouthgroup.org/pages/1/index.htm .

In this book trekkers can write their name and plans. If by any reason, they go missing it is much easyier to trak down their itinery. See also the general page of Namche Youth Group http://www.namcheyouthgroup.org/pages/6/index.htm