The search for two Americans who went missing last week after renting a Jet Ski in Barbados was called off by the country’s coast guard on Sunday, Roy Morris, press secretary to Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley, told CNN.
The United States, which was helping with the search, withdrew its assisting aircraft on Saturday, Morris also said.
Oscar Suarez, 32 and Magdalena Devil, 25, rented the Jet Ski from a local company at Holetown Beach in Barbados on June 24. When they didn’t return 20 minutes later, the operators became worried and contacted other operators in the area to search for them, according to police. Both were wearing life jackets when they were last seen.
The Police Marine Unit and Barbados Coast Guard both searched the waters but did not find the couple or the Jet Ski, police said. Authorities also checked with the management of the hotel where the Americans were staying, but neither of them had returned.
Mottley told reporters Thursday that searches typically last 72 hours but she had instructed authorities to continue looking for Suarez and Devil for an additional three days.
“We need to literally ensure that we have exhausted every possible opportunity with respect to finding your relatives,” Mottley said, addressing the couple’s family members.
The family desperately handed out flyers on a beach on the island’s west coast hoping to find answers.
“We want answers,” Susanna Cruz, Suarez’s sister, had told CNN on Friday. She said the family had hoped for more land search efforts.
“Talking to people actually on the beach. They are doing so but with limited results,” Cruz said Friday.
