year-old Saudi who went missing on June 30 refused to allow rescue operations to stop on Sunday amid concerns the youth could still be alive. Salah Al-Zahrani, 21, went missing from a ferry traveling to the Tabuk region from Egypt. His father refused to sign a Frontier Guard document to end the search-and-rescue operations. The possibility of a suicide attempt was ruled out by one of Al-Zahrani's cousin, who said Al-Zahrani could still be in Egypt. Despite eyewitness accounts placing Al-Zahrani on the ferry before it left Egyptian territorial waters, none of his belongings were found onboard.Another of Al-Zahrani's cousins said it was unlikely that he disappeared because of family problems since he had a good rapport with the people he knew. An official at the Frontier Guard Authority said search operations are normally for 72 hours. However, they were extended for an additional 24 hours at the insistence of Al-Zahrani's father. The official also said that if the body remained intact underwater for 72 hours it would float to the surface. According to previous Al-Madina articles on the missing man, this was not the only such incident on the same ferry route between Hurghada in Egypt and Dhiba port in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. Informed sources said that there was no truth to reports that a number of people have been arrested for interrogation. One possibility is that Al-Zahrani may have fallen overboard because of the high speed of the ferry. Ibrahim Al-Homaid, in charge of citizen affairs at the Saudi Embassy in Cairo, said Al-Zahrani came to Egypt as a tourist with his cousin Mohammad Al-Zahrani and he spent a week in Cairo. Earlier reports said Mohammad was his nephew. On the day of his scheduled return to Saudi Arabia, Zahrani had gone to the embassy to have his passport stamped.
