A French traveller last seen in Dhaka has been missing since late January this year .
A backpacker and cyclist, 30-year-old Arthur Angé’s last known location was Dhaka city, according to his family. He went missing after January 26.
He was also known to be in Khulna on January 22 and in Chittagong between January 13 to 21, his cousin Maeva informed the Dhaka Tribune when contacted.
Maeva said: “He intended to go to Thailand and then Malaysia by sea or, as he mentioned in his last email on January 26, by crossing Myanmar without a legal visa. He said he needed to be in Malaysia by the beginning of February to meet a friend.
“We do not know if he planned to go to Myanmar through the north of Bangladesh and India or by the south of Bangladesh.”
Maeva also confirmed to the Dhaka Tribune that Arthur did not arrive in Malaysia.
This reporter also asked Maeva which countries he had already visited, to which she replied: “Arthur came to Bangladesh after visiting Thailand, then India.”
Arthur, who is from Montpellier in France, is six-feet tall, has brown eyes and chestnut-red hair. He began his expedition around the world by land about three years ago. His Facebook profile cover photo has an illustration of the world map with “World Tour By Land” written below. He posted the picture on October 28, 2013.
A Facebook page –
Arthur Whereareyou – has been opened by his friends and family to aid search efforts. The page has shared possible routes he may have taken as well as some pictures of him taken in Bangladesh. The page also shared a missing persons poster of Arthur which has been circulating on different social media platforms.
The Dhaka Tribune tried to contact the French Embassy in Bangladesh through email and over the phone on Wednesday, but there was no response.
However, this correspondent later received a phone call from an embassy representative. When asked about Arthur, the representative said: “Are you a French citizen? This is an emergency number, only for French citizens living in Bangladesh, not for press … Call tomorrow during office hours.”
Subsequent attempts to contact the French Embassy through their official phone numbers have once again yielded no response.
According to his friends and cousin, Arthur Angé, who holds a French passport numbered 15FV01536, usually travels alone with only his backpack. They added that he never used taxis or trains during his travels, and avoided big cities and restaurants.
Furthermore, Arthur did not use a mobile phone and stayed in the houses of locals, where he would eat and sleep.
Arthur's friends also said that they had contacted French embassies in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand to no avail.
Maeva said: “We have contacted the embassies of all the countries he might have gone to, but none of them gave us any information or cooperated in the matter.
“A lawyer is currently working with us but such legal procedures take a lot of time.”
Arthur’s friends further expressed suspicions that he may have been arrested while trying to cross the border from Bangladesh or India into Myanmar, though border authorities of both India and Bangladesh failed to provide any information.
When contacted, law enforcement officials in Dhaka told the Dhaka Tribune that they knew nothing of the disappearance, giving assurances that they would look into the incident.
Additional DIG of Chittagong Metropolitan Police Kusum Dewan said: “We do not have any knowledge of him (Arthur Angé). If anyone had tried to cross Bangladesh territory to another country using a ship, we would have been informed as such travel needs permission.”
Arthur’s family and friends have requested that a search perimeter be established within the boundaries of Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.
Anyone with information about the missing person is requested to contact
[email protected] or phone: +33650862576
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/arthurmissing
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