Missing Dutch tourist found dead in Laos river
The body of Mattijn Lahuis was found in a river in the jungle of Laos on Friday. The 30-year-old man from Amsterdam went missing after a kayaking accident on the river on Monday. The Dutch tourist drowned, his family confirmed to newspaper AD.
Lahuis' body was found in the river Nam Tha, a few dozen kilometers downstream from where the kayaking accident happened. His eldest brother identified the body.
"The family is deeply shocked by the sad news, but they are grateful for all the statements of support and donations they received for the search", a spokesperson for the family said to the newspaper.
Lahuis is not the only Dutch tourist to die abroad over the past weeks. A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told AD that the past holiday weeks were busier when it came to reports of Dutch tourists in trouble than previous years. "We do not have exact figures, but it certainly looks like more cases."
A 21-year-old man from Den Bosch died in Croatia on Friday after he fell from a city wall. A Dutch woman was killed in Canada after falling into a river. Earlier in the week another Dutch woman was killed in a quad bike accident on a Greek island. The week before, teenager Koen van Keulen was found dead in a ditch along a narrow road in Italy. And a Dutch man was among four cyclists killed in an apparent terrorist attack in Tajikistan.