Mystery of missing Brit teacher who vanished 11 days ago in Turkey while hiking alone to ‘deserted, lifeless ghost town’
A BRITISH teacher has been missing in Turkey for ten days after he failed to show up for his flight home.
David Cann, 56, vanished after he set out for a nine-mile trek to a deserted ghost town in the south-west of the country.
The English teacher from Portsmouth, who has travelled extensively in the past on his own, had planned the walk to go through the town of Kayakov, which has been abandoned for nearly 100 years and has been described as “deserted, lifeless and spooky”.
But the alarm was raised by holiday reps after he did not make it for his flight home and his belongings were found in his hotel room in Hisaronu.
He was last seen leaving the Happy Nur hotel on July 2 when he told the manager he intended to go walking.
In a desperate bid to find him, his nephew, firefighter Gavin Thomas, 35, and his wife Georgina, have flown out to search for him.
Mr Thomas fears his uncle may have injured himself while out hiking although another holidaymaker told him three men had tried to force him into a car on the same route Mr Cann is thought to have used.
Mr Thomas told the : “The initial thought is he may have fallen and he's injured somewhere, unable to raise the alarm, that's our primary thought.
"But obviously you can't rule out something untoward going on. It's a possibility, but we obviously don't want to think like that.
"For whatever reason, he might have gone walking off somewhere and got lost.
“We’re clinging to the thought that Dave is a resourceful man. If anyone can find a way out of a dangerous situation, it’s him.”
He added that his uncle is used to going on holiday alone but the disappearance it out of character.
Mr Thomas said on the night before he went missing he had been enjoying a beer with some of the other hotel guests and seemed in good spirits.
A search operation is currently underway in the region with the country’s search and rescue personnel as well as the police and military involved.
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More than 60 people, along with dogs, drones and mounted officers, took part in a search of an area of forest last Tuesday but no trace of Mr Cann was found.
His family now hope the Turkish authorities can track his mobile, which stopped ringing on Monday, in a bid to locate him.
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said: "We are providing support to the family of a British man who has been reported missing in Turkey, and our staff are in contact with the Turkish authorities."
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