A Spanish man documenting his ambitious journey on foot from Madrid to Doha for the 2022 FIFA World The Cup has not been heard of since crossing into Iran three weeks ago, his family said on Monday, fueling fears about his fate in a country beset by widespread unrest.
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Veteran trekker, former paratrooper and avid soccer fan, 41-year-old Santiago Sanchez was last seen hiking through 15 countries in Iraq after widely sharing his journey over the past nine months on a popular Instagram account . But on October 1, the day he entered Iran through the country’s volatile north-west border, his fervent posts suddenly ceased.
Sanchez’s family says that their daily WhatsApp updates also stopped that day. Weeks later, they fear the worst.
“We’re so worried, we can’t stop crying, my husband and I,” his mother, Celia Kogedor, told the Associated Press.
Sánchez’s parents have reported her missing to Spain’s national police and foreign ministry.
But Spanish officials say they have no information about his whereabouts, adding that the Spanish ambassador in Tehran was looking into the matter.
Calls from the Iranian Foreign Ministry seeking comment were not immediately returned on Monday.
Sanchez’s disappearance in Iran – his last stop before arriving in Qatar for the World Cup – comes after protesters in the Islamic republic rose in the biggest anti-government movement in more than a decade. Demonstrations erupted on 16 September over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by Iran’s ethics police for allegedly not following the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
Tehran has violently cracked down and blamed foreign enemies and Kurdish groups for fueling unrest in Iraq without evidence. The Iranian intelligence ministry said officials had arrested nine foreigners, mostly Europeans, over alleged links to the protests last month. Analysts say Western and dual nationals have become increasingly pawns in Iran’s internal political conflicts and tensions between Tehran and Western capitals have led to the arrest of at least a dozen dual nationals on controversial espionage charges in recent years. Is.
Sanchez arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan in late September, after trekking thousands of kilometers (miles) in a wheeled cart carrying a small suitcase, packing little more than a tent, water purification pills and a gas stove for his 11 months on the road. He said he wanted to learn how others lived among them before arriving in Qatar, the Arab world’s first World Cup host nation, for Spain’s first match on 23 November.
“The idea of the trip is to inspire and inspire other people to show that they can go a long way with very little,” he told the AP from the Kurdish city of Sulaymaniyah in northeastern Iraq. “You can go a long way on foot.”
The day before his disappearance, Sanchez had breakfast with a guide at Sulaymaniyah. The guide, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said he tried to warn Sanchez about the dangerous political situation in Iran as they split.
Protests in Iran’s Kurdish region following Amini’s death sparked nationwide unrest that is still plaguing Iran. In response, Iranian forces have launched drone and artillery attacks targeting Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq.
But Sanchez was adamant and confident, the guide said.
“He didn’t seem nervous at all. He told me, ‘I sorted everything out, don’t worry,'” she said. They communicated via Google Translate, because Sanchez only speaks Spanish.
Sanchez, the guide added, planned to visit an Iranian family in the Kurdish city of Marivan – a scene of recent anti-government protests. The family, happy with Kogador’s Instagram post, reached out and offered to host it.
After Sanchez crossed the border on October 1, his messages became sparse and secret, the guide said. Sanchez told him that things were “very different” from Sulaimaniyah, an Iraqi metropolis full of parks and cafes in Iran.
“It’s been a long story,” read his final message.
Sanchez’s parents said he had warned them that he would temporarily lose internet access after arriving in Iran.
“The country is ‘hot,’ and there is no communication,” Sanchez told his father in his last message on October 1, possibly due to the turmoil in Iran’s Kurdish region and the Internet and popular communication applications used by the government. Interruption reference. demonstrator.
His parents tried not to fret when his messages did not arrive. But as the weeks passed, his anxiety increased.
Spain’s foreign ministry said it had registered Sanchez’s border crossing in Iran and was not ruling out any possibility.