New team to join search for missing UAE freediver

Brother of UAE national freediving champion missing since Tuesday hires specialist search crew in Greece.

Adel Abu Haliqa (UAE National Freediving Champion) setting four new continental and national freediving records at the 3rd Mediterranean World Cup June 2010.

Courtesy FreedivingUAE
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ABU DHABI // A specialist team will arrive in Greece today or tomorrow to help search for Adel Abu Haliqa, the UAE freediving champion who has been missing since Tuesday.

His family are still holding hope that rescuers will find him.

Mr Abu Haliqa, 40, was training for September's AIDA Individual Depth World Championship 2011 in Greece.

He had been freediving to a depth of 70 metres. His brother, Hussein, travelled to Greece on Thursday and has employed a team from Athens to help in the search operation that mounted by the Greek authorities.

"No news is good news," he said yesterday. "Hopefully it is a good sign."

He is confident that the new team will boost the search campaign once they arrive on the Greek island of Santorini.

"They have to organise the team and equipment first," he said.

On Wednesday, AIDA International, an organisation that aims to further the the sport, said the diver had not returned from a training dive and that the local coastguard was conducting a search operation.

Mr Abu Haliqa has a wife, Nada, two sons, Mohammed and Ali, aged 10 and four, and a daughter, Amna, eight.