Husband of missing woman in Greece said he was ‘laughed at’ while searching for her

The husband of a British woman who has gone missing in Greece said he was laughed at by locals as he desperately searched for his wife.

Chris Bourda, 66, woke up from his sun lounger on Ofrynio beach, Kavala, on Friday afternoon to discover his wife Michele, 59, had disappeared.

The mum-of-one’s belongings were still on her sun bed, but she was nowhere to be found.

He told the Daily Mail: ‘I quickly ran to the toilet and knocked on the ladies but she wasn’t in there. I then ran to the beach to look again in the water.

‘I then quickly went back to the waiter to say my wife was missing, have you seen her and he started laughing.’

Chris explained to the waiter his wife had ‘psychological problems’ and needed to call the police.

But officers did not arrive at the scene for another two hours, forcing him to continue his search alone.

Chris said: ‘The police didn’t do anything on the day. One guest who was there that day said she didn’t see any police and I didn’t see any police that day either, not one single policeman at the beach.’

The search boat is only being used at night or early in the morning to ‘not disturb or concern the tourists’.

Chris, a pharmacist, has been left searching for his wife alone, and has gone without sleep to devote all his time trying to find her.

He said: ‘For days and nights I have gone up down the coast, searched bushes, olive groves, empty houses, building sites, later I went to the hills, nothing.

‘I asked the police if they think that she is alive, why don’t they use dogs, drones, helicopters and they replied where shall we search? It’s a vast area?

‘I don’t think my wife would have gone to somebody in the car or anything. I really don’t. I have tried everywhere but one person alone is very difficult to find something.’

Michele suffers from bouts of depression and anxiety, Chris explained, and on one occasion disappeared while they were living in London.

But police acted quickly and found her on the night she went missing.

The couple, who now live in Glasgow, had decided to visit Greece and seeing Chris’s family in Germany and had planned to stay for six weeks.

He has since made a complaint to the British Embassy in Athens believing Greek police are not doing enough to help him find his wife.

A sports instructor claimed he saw Michele swimming out in deep waters and shouted at her to not go any further.

He has since withdrawn his statement to police.

Chris said: ‘But even if he was shouting at her “where are you going, come back” there were other people on the beach and I cannot understand how nobody, not one person, would see her or hear her.

‘Surely someone would notice if she went out and didn’t come back?’

Missing person charity LifeLine Hellas issued a silver alert – typically used for missing adults with dementia or Alzheimer’s – saying Michele’s ‘life is in danger’ and asking anyone who had seen her to get in touch.

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