Natacha de Crombrugghe has been missing in Peru for three months. His parents are angry and testify.
NAtacha de Crombrugghe, 28, has been missing since January 24, 2022. She had gone on a trek in Peru. Her parents, Eric and Sabine, try everything for everything. In April, they left for the second time on the spot in the hope of collecting clues. This Sunday evening, they sent a press release to provide an update on the investigation. Here are the main elements.
Leaving Belgium on the first day of the year, Natacha had arrived in Cabanaconde the day before January 24 with the ambition of starting a trek alone the next day through the bottom of these gorges traced by the Colca river. No trace of her was found in the few accommodations that populate the bottom of the canyon where she was supposed to relax for a few days.
His parents sent a press release this Sunday evening to the editorial staff to provide an update on the investigation. A help group was also created.
Since the beginning of February, many guides and volunteers have gone there to look for Natacha. Police and high mountain rescuers came to join them. More than 70 people excavated more than 495 kilometers. After a month, the research did not lead to huge breakthroughs. In March, after a rainy season and an earthquake, the search was abandoned.
Natacha’s parents left at the end of February, after being reassured by the ongoing mobilization and the advice of three Belgian police officers who spent five days there.
A new witness
“Mid-March, the Peruvian police inform us that a new witness would have crossed Natacha in the canyon and would have heard an earthquake and a landslide just afterwards. We ask them to verify the veracity of this testimony and to go there to find out if our daughter is buried under the earth and the stones. We live in anguish. But we have no news and have to wait for the meeting with the prosecutor and the people in charge of the case in Belgium to take the plane back to Lima on April 4, determined to do everything to find our daughter. »
Later, they will launch their own investigation in parallel. They think the people of the village are afraid to speak.
“We are going to Cabanaconde to be close to our daughter and to survey the population ourselves. Everything is known in a small village, but no one dares to speak. In consultation with the lawyer and the police, we decide to offer a reward of 15,000 dollars in order to motivate the inhabitants of Cabanaconde to speak and look for Natacha. We put up posters everywhere in the village, in the Canyon, in Chivay and in Arequipa, especially in travel agencies so that guides and tourists who go hiking in the canyon are looking for Natacha on their way. The announcement is relayed on social networks. But still nothing. Are the people of Cabanaconde afraid to speak? Why ? »
Did something happen at the hotel?
“A team of rescuers was sent to the area in early May to search for Natacha and Kevin, the young Peruvian who fell into the river the day after Natacha disappeared. They found his pants. We are accompanying the two Divincri police officers who were to continue the investigation in Cabanaconde, we thought. But, two days later, they return to Arequipa, the drone promised to search the inaccessible areas has still not arrived, all our requests for investigations, repeated many times, have still not been executed. The police are waiting for the corn harvest, the decline of the river and the body of Natacha to continue the judicial investigation. Yet everyone, including the police, thinks something happened at the hotel or in Cabanaconde. She may still be alive, trapped somewhere. »
Only a volunteer rescuer continues the search
“The only information that reaches us is that of shamans, energizers, pendulists, mediums and other clairvoyants who either see her dead or alive and each time in a different place! »
“Only Colca’s volunteer first-aid guide, Eloy Cacya, is continuing the search, but it’s up to Autocolca,” we were assured, “to take charge of the continuation of the search. Fortunately, we are supported by our hosts at the Kuntur Wassi hotel and by the population. »
A solidarity march
Natacha’s parents say they are physically and morally exhausted. They appeal: “We are still at the starting point and we are going in circles. We expect the authorities to seriously resume the investigation and answer all our questions. Natacha is somewhere, we can’t abandon her. We need to find out what happened and find her. »