«God Has Heard Me and Returned My Brother to Us»

Two siblings of the man from Alicante found in Belgium after being missing for over a month are scheduled to travel to Bruges this Saturday to reunite with him and their other sister, Luisa, who resides in Belgium. Angustias García confirmed this to TodoAlicante, having almost given up hope of finding her brother Antonio alive: «Hope was almost lost, but God has heard me and returned him to us.»

Luisa García has already been able to see her brother after he appeared disoriented at a police station seeking help. He is expected to return to Spain with his family at the end of the week or early next week, as Angustias mentioned, «they only had a one-way ticket because the intention was to travel there to search for him.»

Around 8 a.m. on Friday, August 30, Belgian authorities contacted Luisa García to inform her that her brother had shown up there. She requested that Antonio stay with the officers until she arrived at the station to prevent him from becoming disoriented and lost again. The distance between the police station and Luisa and her husband's home is about 180 kilometers.

Angustias García told TodoAlicante that she is only «a little more at ease» at the moment but clarified that «I will feel more relieved when I see him via video call; it has been a month and four days of great suffering.»

Antonio García disappeared on July 26 when he was about to return to Spain after spending a month trying to start a new life in Belgium. While boarding a plane at Ostend International Airport, he found himself without clothes, prompting Belgian authorities to remove him from the cabin. From that moment on, he was untraceable.

Antonio, 57 years old, is diabetic and had not been able to obtain his medication during his stay in Belgium as he was not registered there, according to his family. When he did not arrive in Alicante, alarms were raised, and the family began efforts to locate him but without any leads on his whereabouts. They even resorted to putting up posters around the city. Luisa and her husband would walk the streets every day after work in hopes of finding him.

The family's problem was compounded by not knowing how to proceed in such a case and being overwhelmed with pain, making it difficult for them to think of the next steps. Antonio was without a mobile phone and was not withdrawing money from his account, which only heightened his family's concern. The entire neighborhood where he lived rallied around the family, doing whatever they could to help.

In the Cemetery neighborhood where he resided, plans were underway for a demonstration demanding more effort in his search. From the Gypsy Secretariat, especially its secretary José Fernández, had initiated measures for a more thorough search operation. Alongside the family, they had informed the Spanish embassy earlier this week, which now possessed all the necessary documentation for an international operation.