A friend of the missing British hiker who went missing in the Dolomites has spoken of his fear.
35-year-old Sam Harris and 36-year-old Aziz Ziriat’s disappearance raised alarm bells on 6 January after the pair were unreachable.
A desperate search was then immediately underway for the two British hikers who failed to board their flight home from their trip to the Italian mountains.
The pair, from London, were last heard from on 1 January at 2.20pm when they sent messages to their loved ones from the Trentino region.
They were due to fly back home on 6 January but did not check into their return flight to the UK, sparking concern.
It was then after an investigation was launched that Harris’s remains were found in the Passo di Conca area on Wednesday 8 January, leaving fears for Ziriat’s whereabouts mounting.
The rescue teams had located Harris after tracking a ‘phone of one of the two mountaineers’, and as Ziriat works for Crystal Palace’s charity Palace For Life, the charity shared to its followers that the pair had been missing.
The page wrote on X, formerly Twitter, saying: “Crystal Palace urges supporters to share any information they might have to help locate Palace for Life Foundation staff member Aziz Ziriat, and his friend Sam Harris, who have been missing since 1st January whilst hiking in the Dolomites mountains in northeastern Italy.”
Sadly, once the news of Harris’s death broke, the football team wrote: “We are aware of reports that the body of Sam Harris has been recovered.
“We are devastated to receive this news and our thoughts and deepest sympathies go out to his loved ones.
“No further information is currently available regarding the whereabouts of Aziz.”
A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on yesterday (Friday 10 January): “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in northern Italy and are in contact with the local authorities.”
His close friend, Joe Stone, who went to university with the hiker explained that ‘there is an acceptance that it won’t be good news’.
He shared to the PA news agency that rescuers are ‘trying everything’ to find him, but as there has been no sighting of him in 10 days, hope is dwindling.
Stone revealed that even though he doesn’t believe it will be good news when the alarm is raised when he is found, ‘it would be really nice to find him and be put out of this limbo’ of not knowing what condition he is in.
The Two hikers were last placed at the Casina Dosson, a mountain hut near the Riva Del Garda, close to the town of Tione Di Trento.
Italy’s National Alpine Cliff and Cave Rescue Corps stated today that the search for Ziriat continued as the sun rose and with 40 rescuers who have been airlifted to the high altitude environment to dig through snow in search of him.
On Wednesday 8 December, the alpine rescue service advised that its ground teams had found a body in the area of Passo di Conca which was ‘sadly deceased, buried under the snow’, and belonging to Harris.
Ziriat’s whereabouts remain unconfirmed.
