Dutch Tourist Found Dead on Greek Island, 4 Other Foreign Tourists Are Missing

Tourist walk next a mist machine in Monastiraki district of Athens as at the background is seen the ancient Acropolis Hill on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Tourist walk next a mist machine in Monastiraki district of Athens as at the background is seen the ancient Acropolis Hill on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
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Dutch Tourist Found Dead on Greek Island, 4 Other Foreign Tourists Are Missing

Tourist walk next a mist machine in Monastiraki district of Athens as at the background is seen the ancient Acropolis Hill on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Tourist walk next a mist machine in Monastiraki district of Athens as at the background is seen the ancient Acropolis Hill on Thursday, June 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A missing Dutch tourist was found dead early Saturday on the eastern Greek island of Samos, local media reported, the latest in a string of recent cases in which tourists in the Greek islands have died or gone missing. Some, if not all, had set out on hikes in blistering hot temperatures.
Dr. Michael Mosley, a noted British TV anchor and author, was found dead last Sunday on the island of Symi. A coroner concluded that he had died the previous Wednesday, shortly after going for a hike over difficult, rocky terrain.
Samos, like Symi, lies very close to the Turkish coast.
The body of the 74-year-old Dutch tourist was found by a Fire Service drone lying face down in a ravine about 300 meters from the spot where he was last observed on Sunday, walking with some difficulty in the blistering heat.
Authorities were still searching for four people reported missing in the past few days, The Associated Press reported.
On Friday, two French tourists were reported missing on Sikinos, a relatively secluded Cyclades island in the Aegean Sea, with less than 400 permanent residents.
The two women, aged 73 and 64, had left their respective hotels to meet.
A 70-year-old American tourist was reported missing Thursday on the small island of Mathraki in Greece’s northwest extremity by his host, a Greek-American friend. The tourist had last been seen Tuesday at a cafe in the company of two female tourists who have since left the island.
Mathraki, population 100, is a 3.9-square-kilometer heavily wooded island, west of the better-known island of Corfu. Strong winds had prevented police and the fire service from reaching the island to search for the missing person as of Saturday afternoon, media reported.
On the island of Amorgos, authorities were still searching for a 59-year-old tourist reported missing since Tuesday, when he had gone on a solo hike in very hot conditions.
US media identified the missing tourist as retired Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Albert Calibet of Hermosa Beach, California.
Amorgos, the easternmost of the Cyclades islands, is a rocky 122-square-kilometer island of less than 2,000 inhabitants. A couple of years ago the island had a record number of visitors, over 100,000.
Some media commentary has focused on the need to inform tourists of the dangers of setting off on hikes in intense heat.
Temperatures across Greece on Saturday were more than 10 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) lower than on Thursday, when they peaked at almost 45 C (113 F). They are expected to rise again from Sunday, although not to heat-wave levels.



Pope Leo XIV Urges Release of Imprisoned Journalists, Affirms Gift of Free Speech and Press

TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
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Pope Leo XIV Urges Release of Imprisoned Journalists, Affirms Gift of Free Speech and Press

TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Pope Leo XIV (C) gestures during an audience to representatives of the media, at Paul-VI hall in The Vatican, on May 12, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)

Pope Leo XIV on Monday called for the release of imprisoned journalists and affirmed the "precious gift of free speech and the press" in an audience with some of the 6,000 journalists who descended on Rome to cover his election as the first American pontiff.

Leo received a standing ovation as he entered the Vatican auditorium for his first meeting with representatives of the general public.

The 69-year-old Augustinian missionary, elected in a 24-hour conclave last week, called for journalists to use words for peace, to reject war and to give voice to the voiceless.

He expressed solidarity with journalists around the world who have been jailed for trying to seek and report the truth. Drawing applause from the crowd, he asked for their release.

"The church recognizes in these witnesses - I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives - the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of people to be informed, because only informed individuals can make free choices," he said.

"The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations and the international community, calling on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and of the press."

Leo opened the meeting with a few words in English, joking that if the crowd was still awake and applauding at the end, it mattered more than the ovation that greeted him.

Turning to Italian, he thanked the journalists for their work covering the papal transition and urged them to use words of peace.

"Peace begins with each one of us: in the way we look at others, listen to others and speak about others," he said. "In this sense, the way we communicate is of fundamental importance: we must say `no´ to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war."

After his brief speech, in which he reflected on the power of words to do good, he greeted some of the journalists in the front rows and then shook hands with the crowd as he exited the audience hall down the central aisle. He signed a few autographs and posed for a few selfies.

It was in the 2013 audience with journalists who covered the election of history's first Latin American pope that Pope Francis explained his choice of name, after St. Francis of Assisi, and his desire for a "church which is poor and for the poor!"