Aya Na’amana, an Israeli Technion student who went missing in the Danakil Desert in northeast Ethiopia, was found dead on Sunday.
A group of travelers who arrived at the finishing point of the trail in the Danakil salt desert, dubbed as the hottest place on Earth, reported that one of the travelers, Na’amana, split up from the group and did not make it to the end of the trail.
Upon hearing of the missing traveler, teams from Magnus International Search & Rescue, which is a comprehensive emergency management and on-ground search & rescue service provider, began searching for the young woman.
The company’s founder, Hilik Magnus, claimed that Na’amana had been missing for a long time, in terms of the area where she was lost. “It is a very tough area. The temperatures are extremely high,” he said on the phone with Radio 103FM.
On Sunday morning Na’amana’s body was found, after possibly falling to her death. Word of her death was sent to her family in Israel and to the Foreign Ministry, which began working to transfer her body back to Israel for burial.President Reuven Rivlin spoke with Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde and asked him to help in expediting the body of the young woman. Rivlin also conveyed his deepest condolences to Aya's family through MK Issawi Frej, who is a close friend of the family.