Hoping for a miracle

Social media reports suggesting missing New Jersey couple, Oscar Suarez and Magdalena Devil were found in a neighboring island are untrue, the acting police public relations officer has revealed.

In fact, Inspector Rodney Inniss revealed after over 96 hours of searching by local, regional and private sector entities, there were no new developments in the mysterious case.

“The status remains the same. Search parties are continuing by air, by land, by sea, police marine units and the Coast Guard are still looking and unfortunately there are no positive results coming forth,” Inniss told Barbados TODAY.

“We are keeping the family posted and right now we are just hoping for something positive to happen. We are hoping for a miracle.”

The effort is consistent with a promise from Prime Minister, Mia Mottley on Thursday evening that the search for Suarez and Devil would continue for at least another 72 hours as officials do everything “humanly possible” to find the couple.

Around midday, rumors began circulating on social media that at least one of the tourists had been found in St. Lucia. However, the police PRO soundly dismissed this as “rumour”.

Family members of both Suarez and Devil are reportedly still in Barbados and met with Artneal Bear Abbey, whose jet ski, the couple rented on Monday before they disappeared.

Numerous international media companies, including Cable News Network (CNN) and American Broadcasting Company (ABC) have been closely following the developments.

On Thursday, Suarez’s relatives indicated the puzzling disappearance had started taking its toll and announced a $US 10,000 award would be given to anyone with information on the matter.

According to Oscar’s cousin, Thais Sonnabend-Aguilar, the family network from as far away as California and as close as Florida and Puerto Rico has been following the developments.
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb