The daughters of a Victoria man missing in Spain are heading there this week to search for him, as Victoria police appeal for help from the public.
Victoria police issued appeals to help find Scott Graham in English and Spanish on Monday. Officers here have been working with Spanish police to support their missing-person investigation.
Anyone in Spain who sees Graham is asked to call 122. Anyone outside of Spain with information about his whereabouts is asked to call the Victoria police report desk at 250-995-7654, extension one.
Graham, 67, was last seen at the Canadian Embassy in Madrid on July 15.
Since then, the family has heard nothing from the man they describe as a loving father who could be counted on to keep in touch during his holiday.
“It’s been a wild ride and it doesn’t seem [as if] it will be over any time soon,” daughter Georgia Graham said from Montreal on Monday.
Georgia, her partner James, and her sister Kaiza are going to Madrid together to seek if they can unearth new information, hoping that being on the ground in person in Spain will make a difference.
Family members have been working flat-out to gather information about Scott Graham’s movements and health condition.
Graham requires daily anti-rejection medication after having a kidney transplant and his family isn’t sure if he has been able to get more after losing his bag on a bus on July 11.
Georgia said it is time to go to Spain because they feel as though they have gone as far as possible in their search while based in Canada. Their first stops will be the Canadian Embassy in Madrid and the Madrid police station.
“We are going because it is really, really challenging to get clear information from anyone,” she said. “I still don’t really know what the police have done.” A police officer friend has helped them with a list of avenues to ask about.
Graham, who is retired, went to Amsterdam to visit friends before embarking on a solo trip to Spain and Portugal.
While in Spain, he was left behind at a bus stop, his passport and medication carried off by the bus heading to the resort community of San Sebastian, in northeastern Spain.
Graham has also experienced small strokes and could have cognitive impairments, his daughter said.
The most recent communication from Graham was through an online update to his brother, explaining what had happened.
His worried family has spoken to an official at the Canadian Embassy in Madrid, where Graham went to apply for a new passport.
He was supposed to return on July 18 to pick up the document but he did not show up. He did not get on his July 29 return flight from Amsterdam to Vancouver.
Georgia said the family has learned that he went to hospital in both San Sebastian and in Madrid. He was seeking new medication in Madrid but they have been unable to find out if it was provided. They do not know the name of the hotel he was staying at.
The Graham family has been contacting news organizations and making social media posts to spread the word, asking anyone who can help to contact them at findscottgraham@gmail.com.
Many offers from Spain of help with transportation, translation and navigation have come in, Georgia said.
A GoFundMe page called Support the Search for Scott Graham has been set up to help the family with their search in Spain.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
