A missing person sign for British hiker Tom Doherty is seen attached to a metal post near Ustou, in the French Pyrenees between Col d'Escots and Cirque de Gerac on August 11, 2024. (Photo by Ed JONES / AFP)
Toulouse, France: The search has been called off for a 67-year-old British man who went missing while hiking in the Pyrenees, French prosecutors said on Monday.
The retired doctor was last heard of near the ski resort of Guzet on Tuesday, the prosecutor's office in the southern town of Foix said earlier.
According to his family, the retired doctor, who had been living in the southern region of Lot-et-Garonne, was travelling alone and camping.
"Search operations have been suspended," the prosecutor's office in Foix told AFP on Monday.
"After five days, we haven't managed to find him," a representative of the prosecutor's office said, adding that an investigation into the man's disappearance would continue.
Police had been sweeping the area with the help of sniffer dogs and a helicopter between Wednesday and Sunday.
Injured after a fall, the man had sent a distress message to relatives in the UK at around 4.00 pm on Tuesday.
Examination of the geolocation data on the hiker's phone did not enable him to be located with any accuracy, in steep terrain where telephone reception is unreliable.
His car was located the day after he disappeared, parked not far from Guzet.
