Natacha de Crombrugghe, 28, has been missing since January 24, 2022. On June 29, the police searched a house where the young woman was seen before leaving no trace. Local sources initially reported that his body may be on the property. Our Peruvian colleagues indicate that the young Belgian would indeed have participated in a party on the night of January 23 at this place.
According to information from La Republica, traces of blood were found in this house searched by the police in Cabanaconde. However, no body was found. The blood, which was analyzed, does not belong to Natacha, said Miguel Cayetano, chief of police of Arequipa.
“As part of the investigation, a blood sample was sent to Lima. The analyzes indicate that it does indeed correspond to a human person, but it is not Natacha,” he declared during a press conference.
The Peruvian police are considering three hypotheses on what might have happened to Natacha: a fall in the river following an accident, a violent death or the possibility that she is alive. “As long as the body is not found, all the theories are valid,” he assured.
The young woman’s parents, Sabine Verhelst and Eric de Crombrugghe, had been informed of the discovery by Peruvian investigators. “It is not blood, but bodily fluid that investigators found in an outbuilding of La Estancia, the hotel in Cabanaconde where Natacha stayed on January 23, 2022. It was invisible to the naked eye”, specified at the beginning of July the mother of Natacha to our colleagues from Het Laaste Nieuws.
“Detectives found clothes and a mattress. It is very likely that the bodily fluids found were those of guests who were there. They’re probably not our daughter’s. Laboratory research should provide a definitive answer. It might take a few more days (…) The good news is that the investigation is going well. We continue to hope that we will find our daughter”.
Natacha de Crombrugghe, 28, was on a trek in Peru. She had left a backpack in her hotel room in Cabanaconde, a small village perched at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters in the Peruvian Andes, before leaving alone, on January 24 around 05:00, to go and contemplate the canyon of Colca, one of the deepest in the world.
