Police in Tenerife are urgently calling for volunteers to join a massive search effort for missing British teenager Jay Slater.
Authorities have announced that the search will take place this Saturday in the village of Masca. In an official statement, police said via Sky News: "The Guardia Civil prepares and coordinates a large search to find the young British man missing in the village of Masca. The collaboration of all those Volunteer Associations is requested: Civil Protection, Firefighters, etc., and even private volunteers who are experts in the abrupt search terrain. The massive search will be carried out on Saturday, June 29th from 09:00."
Jay, a 19-year-old from Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire, vanished after attempting to walk back to his accommodation following a missed bus. The apprentice bricklayer had been at the NRG music festival on the island with friends and was last heard from on the Monday before his disappearance. His planned route from Rural de Teno Park in the north of the island to his accommodation would have taken approximately 11 hours on foot.
The relentless search for 19-year-old Jay Slater has now entered its 12th day, with police determined to find the missing British teenager.
Before Jay's disappearance, an expert had already raised concerns about the alarming number of people who go missing in Tenerife, often without a trace. Jay, an apprentice bricklayer from Lancashire, vanished on the morning of June 17 after attending the NRG festival on the island.
Following the festival, Jay extended his night out with two British men he had met, ending up at their Airbnb rental near the village of Masca, in the rugged Rural de Teno National Park. He was last seen in a remote area close to the Mirador La Cruz de Hilda café, an arduous 11-hour walk from where he was staying with friends in the south of the island. Reports indicate Jay is one of 11 people who have gone missing in Tenerife in the past six months. The Sun notes that local police were warned two years ago about their insufficient resources.
Santiago Carlos Martín, coordinator of SOS Disappeared in Tenerife, has emphasized that "families feel abandoned" during searches for their loved ones. Martín, who leads a team of about 40 volunteers, told The Sun, "There are many who have disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased since the pandemic."
Martín and his team advocate for larger multidisciplinary teams to support local police in searches. These teams would include health experts, psychologists, and other professionals, helping to create a clearer understanding of why someone may have vanished.
According to the Spanish Ministry of the Interior, between 2020 and 2023, at least 460 adults went missing in the Canary Islands, which has a population of just 2.2 million. Tenerife ranks second in Spain for the number of missing people, trailing only Andalucia, which has a population four times larger at 8.5 million. In 2022, Martín warned, "There are many disappeared in the Canary Islands and the number has increased after the pandemic. We are at the head of the country, and we are not clear why. Perhaps the orography or the social structure have an influence, but we don't know."
Joaquín Amills, national president of SOS Disappeared, echoed these concerns, stating, "There are fewer resources here and to change that we all have to work together." Meanwhile, residents of Masca have reported similar disappearances, often involving hikers who get lost.
Anita, a local woman, told The Independent, "We often have hikers go missing, every summer it is the same. Police come for a week and search and then they go – sometimes it can take months for a body to be found as the mountains are too difficult to search. People have said there was a sighting of him here, but no one knows anything – his family came here but there’s nothing to show he is here, as far as I know, no shop or café has seen him."
There are fears that Jay may not be found alive if he got lost in Tenerife's treacherous mountains. However, Spanish authorities are not giving up on their extensive search operation, which includes scanning remote areas with helicopters and sniffer dogs. On Day 11 of the search, a police spokesman stated, "The Civil Guard is continuing to search for the young British man who disappeared, carrying out inspections of all the paths, trails and ravines belonging to the village of Masca within the municipality of Buenavista del Norte."
On Wednesday, police released footage of officers combing through mountainous terrain on foot. A source told the Mirror, "No one at the moment is talking about the search being brought to an end, even though it's very unlikely Jay has survived if he got lost in the mountains in the way we were told he did. There will be a point when the operation that's taking place at the moment has to at least be scaled back but right now the search teams appear to have decided they want to give themselves more time."
