CROATIA. Tragedy in Croatia for a young man aged 20, Leonardo Bucci, resident of Montevarchi (Arezzo), who died on Thursday, August 20 while on vacation on the island of Pag with some friends. The circumstances of the death are still unclear and investigations by the Croatian authorities are underway to accurately reconstruct what happened.
What happened
According to initial information, the group of young people was engaged in a sea excursion aboard jet skis. At the end of the experience, the friends of the twenty-year-old returned to base, but noticed that their companion had not returned with them. The alarm was then raised and searches in the area were immediately started. The jet ski used by the young man was found intact near a shore. Not far away, in the water, the body of the twenty-year-old, already lifeless, was subsequently found. A discovery that still leaves many questions about the dynamics of the tragedy.
The hypotheses under consideration
It is still not clear what happened in the moments before the death nor why the young man was unable to return to base with the other members of the group. Among the hypotheses under consideration is also that of a possible illness, but at the moment there are no official elements that allow establishing the cause of death. The boy’s friends have been interviewed by the Croatian police as persons informed about the facts. A step considered important to reconstruct the sequence of events. However, during the sea outing, the young people were not all close together and therefore would not have directly witnessed what might have happened to their companion.
The reconstruction
A reconstruction of the search operations was provided by the Ministry of the Sea, Transport and Infrastructure of Croatia. According to what was reported in an official statement, the report of the disappearance of an Italian citizen arrived on August 20 at 18:39 at the Mrcc of Rijeka, through the police station of Novalja.
The officers had already started searches in the continental part of the island of Pag, in the Novalja area. Immediately after the report, the Karlobag Port Authority was also informed, whose operators began searching for the young man southeast of Novalja, in the area of the Caska bay. That area was indicated as the point from which the twenty-year-old had left aboard the rented jet ski. The searches then focused on the area.
At 19:49, just over an hour after the disappearance report, the Novalja police station communicated to the Mrcc of Rijeka the discovery of the young man’s body, unfortunately lifeless, near the place where the searches had started. After the discovery, the operations were stopped. The Croatian Ministry specified that further activities related to the case are the responsibility of the police. It will therefore be up to the local investigators to reconstruct in detail the dynamics of the event and clarify the circumstances of the death. The tragedy also involved the Italian diplomatic authorities. The Italian consulate was informed of the event and is following the situation in collaboration with the local authorities. The news was also communicated to the young man’s family.
The parents were in Sardinia, where they were on vacation, when they received the call informing them of the tragedy. After learning what happened, they immediately left for Croatia. The last moments of the twenty-year-old’s life and the causes of death remain to be clarified. The investigations by the Croatian police continue to reconstruct what happened at sea and provide the family and friends with the still missing answers about a tragedy that occurred during a vacation.
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