Father of missing British boy calls situation a ‘nightmare’

Efforts to rescue missing British teenager Jay Slater on the Spanish island of Tenerife entered their seventh day on Sunday – a day after his father Warren Slater visited the scene of his son’s disappearance and described the situation as a “nightmare”.

“I just hope someone helped him get off that mountain,” his father told the media.

“That’s all I want, for someone to help him get off this mountain,” Slater added.

The 19-year-old was on holiday in the Canaries with two friends when he disappeared in the early hours of Monday June 17, after attending a music festival.

Slater had phoned his friend Lucy Law at 8am to tell her he had missed the 40-minute bus ride home after the event and would walk the 10 kilometers to their accommodation.

He informed him that he had no water, that he was lost and that his cell phone was working at 1%.

The perilous return walk has been described by experienced hikers as very difficult and could take up to 11 hours. Hiker Susannah Smith told media she was an athletic person and found the route difficult.

“The descent was hard on the knees, the climb, you know, halfway after having had lunch, having had enough water, having had a hiking pole to help us, was very difficult, at the end it was , you know, really mind over matter,” she said.

A GoFundMe page set up today by Law has raised €35,464 to help emergency efforts and the Slater family.

According to local media, search teams on Sunday morning focused on searching small outbuildings near where the teenager’s phone was last located.