MADRID: A Spanish man, trekking from Madrid to Doha for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, arrived in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdish region of Iraq on his way to Qatar, before he went missing after crossing into Iran at the beginning of October.

The experienced trekker, former paratrooper and fervent soccer fan, 41-year-old Santiago Sánchez, was last seen in Iraq after hiking through 15 countries and extensively sharing his journey on a popular Instagram account over the last nine months.

Sánchez’s family last heard from him on Oct. 2, a day after he crossed the Iraq-Iran border.

“I’m with a friend who has come to pick me up. I’m going to go to Bandar Abbas, very far away 1,700 kilometres (1,056 miles) south in Iran, near the island of Hormuz,” Sánchez’s calm voice said.

The Spanish adventurer explained how he planned to go to Tehran, the Iranian capital, the following day, where a television station wanted to interview him.

His next step would have been Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran where he would hop on a boat to Qatar. But all traces of him evaporated even before he reached Tehran, his parents think.

Sánchez had already warned his family before crossing into Iran that communication wouldn’t be as easy as it had been in previous months.

His parents reported him missing on Oct. 17, and they said Spain’s police and diplomats were helping the family.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry said it had no information about Sánchez’s whereabouts, adding that the Spanish ambassador to Tehran was handling the matter. Calls to the Iranian Foreign Ministry seeking comment were not immediately returned.

This was not Sanchez’s first time in Iran. In 2019 he biked a similar route to get from Madrid to Saudi Arabia.

His parents are proud of his adventurous spirit and say his only goals are to help others and promote the Real Madrid soccer team.

The day before he disappeared, Sánchez had breakfast with a guide in Sulaymaniyah. The guide, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he tried to warn Sánchez about the dangerous political situation in Iran.

Protests in Iran’s Kurdish region after Amini’s death kindled the nationwide unrest still roiling Iran. In response, Iranian forces have unleashed drone and artillery attacks targeting Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq.

Sánchez, the guide added, planned to meet an Iranian family in the Kurdish town of Marivan — a scene of recent anti-government protests. The family, delighted by Sánchez’s Instagram posts, had offered to host him.

After Sánchez crossed the border on Oct. 1, his messages became sparse and cryptic, the guide said. Sánchez told him that things were “very different” in Iran from Sulaymaniyah, an Iraqi metropolis filled with parks and cafes.

In his last Instagram update, the night before he crossed the Iranian border, he posted images of his emotional farewell to Iraq and told of a Kurdish family’s generosity. He had planned to camp on a mountain, but the owner of a nearby farm took him in, giving him a bed, a shower and a hearty dinner.

Pictures on Instagram show him eating bread and chicken soup, smiling and posing with young boys from the village and drinking tea over an open fire.

Source: AP news