A search is underway for a missing Brazilian man who disappeared while on a trip to Paris, with his belongings abandoned and his phone turning up in a plant pot
The police in France are searching hospitals and morgues for a missing Brazilian photographer, who disappeared a week ago in Paris.
After checking in for his flight home to Brazil on 26th November, Flavio de Castro Sousa, 37, went missing in the French capital. The next day, November 27th, his belongings were discovered in a plant pot. The French police are now desperately searching morgues, hospitals and psychiatric facilities in a bid to find him.
His family are holding onto the hope that he will be found alive and well, while his partner, named as Lucien Esteban, has said that there are key differences between Brazilian law and French law in regards to how missing persons cases are dealt with, and has asked the Brazilian government to intervene.
He said: “The big question is: French law is different, it is very different from Brazilian law, especially when it comes to disappearances. So they have two types of classification for these reports that can be urgent, which translates directly to ours, right?” In France there is no deadline like in Brazil, which has a deadline of, for example, 72 hours to consider someone missing.
“And our friends have tirelessly gone to the police and every time they have the same thing, right? That for now it is not something urgent, an investigation will not be opened. Our goal is precisely to appeal to our government here, which we believe has much more influence than we, as citizens, do-so they can intervene and try to coordinate something with the French government.”
The photographer, also known as Flavio Carrilho, was last seen at a holiday rental apartment on Rue des Reculettes in Paris on 25th November. The man, from Belo Horizonte, had arrived earlier in November to work at a wedding and was set to return home the day he disappeared.
He had reportedly checked in for the flight but did not board the aircraft and vanished after meeting a friend named only as Alex. A close friend of Flavio received a message from a French acquaintance, who said that the photographer had had an accident involving the Seine River and had received treatment at the Georges Pompidou Hospital on 26th November.
And after being discharged, according to this unnamed acquaintance, he tried to extend his stay in the apartment he had rented for the season, went there and then did not give any more news. Flavio’s belongings, including his passport, were removed from the property by the Frenchman.
After that, Flavio’s mother started calling his mobile phone insistently and, in the early hours of 28th November, a restaurant employee answered, according to Brazilian media. He did not speak Portuguese and passed the call to a Brazilian colleague, who explained that they had found the device in a plant pot early on the morning of 27th November, in front of the restaurant.
According to the family, the Brazilian embassy was contacted, requesting that Interpol issue an alert to locate the photographer. Friends and family also say that Flavio was not in the habit of going so many days without giving news and that, for this reason, they are mobilising to try and find him. French investigators are set to open his suitcase today, Tuesday, 3rd December according to Brazilian media, in a bid to find clues that would help them find him.
