GILGIT-BALTISTAN: Pakistan’s missing mountaineer Ali Sadpara and his two associates, Iceland’s John Snorri and Chile’s Juan Pablo Mohr, were declared dead on Thursday.
The news was announced in a press conference addressed by Sadpara’s son, Sajid Ali Sadpara, along with Gilgit-Baltistan’s tourism minister, Raja Nasir Ali Khan.
The climbers had gone missing on February 5 during their winter K2 expedition, and were last seen around the mountain’s most treacherous path called the Bottleneck.
Sadpara’s son also broke the news on Twitter. Sajid tweeted, “My father Ali Sadpara and other climbers are no more in this world.”
The bereaved son added, “We belong to God, and to Him we shall return,” after announcing his father’s demise.
He further requested everyone to pray for his father’s forgiveness in the hereafter.
“The K2 has embraced my father forever,” Sajid said as he declared his father’s demise at the presser.He further added that, “To all the climbers who appreciate Ali Sadpara’s achievements and look up to him, I promise that I will carry on his dreams and missions and will continue to walk in his footsteps.”
he first search and rescue operation was launched on February 6, hours after the mountaineers were officially declared missing.
However, rescue efforts had to be suspended multiple times owing to bad weather conditions.
Addressing the media on the second day of the mountaineer’s going missing, Sajid Ali Sadpara said that the chances of the three climbers returning alive after three days were “next to none” under such harsh conditions.
Sajid suggested that the three climbers may have had an accident while descending from the K2 “Bottleneck”, considered the most dangerous route of the entire expedition.
As a week passed with no sign of the missing climbers, as well as no sign of bad weather conditions dissipating, the friends and families of the mountaineers went so far as to set up a virtual base camp for a thorough search-and-rescue effort.
“For the first time ever, this team is working with the Iceland Space Agency to review the SAR technology – that has never been used before for searching and rescuing – not the SAT technology, to cover every inch of the higher elevations of the mountain despite bad weather conditions,” read a statement issued by the friends and families from Skardu.
