Society

For three weeks Jay (19) has already been missing in Tenerife. Hopes are dwindling.

19-year-old Jay Slater has been missing from the Canary Island of Tenerife since June 17. The teenager from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, England, was attending a music festival with friends in Tenerife. He informed his friends that he would spend the night with some people he had just met that Sunday night, but since then there has been no trace of the British teenager. He reportedly traveled to a remote Airbnb with the group of new "friends" and then left on foot for his own residence on Monday morning, June 17. But he never arrived there.

Fell into ravine?
The British teenager had not immediately returned to the nearby apartment where he spent the vacation with friends after a party in the coastal town of Los Cristianos, in southwestern Tenerife. After all, he had met new people and wanted to continue the party with them. He left with these two men for a bed and breakfast in remote Masca, more than 30 kilometers above Los Cristianos. On Snapchat, the British teenager shared another photo of himself smoking a cigarette on the steps of the house. When he missed the bus the following morning, he decided to return to the coastal city on foot. His last confirmed location is a nature reserve just over a kilometer north of Masca.

Troubling video chat
During a video call with friend Lucy Mae Law, just before the battery of Jay's phone gave up the ghost, the young man reportedly indicated that he was lost, without water and urgently needed help. He went missing in a rocky area with canyons and caves that is not easily accessible and searchable. 
The area searched for the teenager is particularly challenging as it consists of mountains, rocks, canyons and forests. Spanish police searched the area with helicopters, drones and search dogs, but found nothing. 

Police cease search, family takes over
Spanish police have decided to call off the search for the missing Briton after two weeks, much to the frustration of the British teenager's family and friends. Consequently, the family has launched its own search. His family began searching on their own and are now begging for help from British police and Interpol. 
For a week they combed the mountainous region around the mountain village of Masca. But the area is so large that it is almost impossible to do anything. "Even an army would take 10 years," says Jay's father, who is now hoping for support from the British police and Interpol. "I appeal to them to take control of the investigation themselves," he says.

(SR for Tagtik/Picture: GoFundMe - Family handout)