Rome: A doctor who disappeared from home 20 years ago has been discovered living as a hermit in the forests of Tuscany.
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Carlos Sanchez Ortiz de Salazar, 45, a Spaniard, was found by chance by mushroom pickers in the woods a few days ago.
He recounted his story and even let them photograph a few tattered documents, including a university library card.
He told them that he had been living in the woods for most of the last two decades, after disappearing from his home in Seville in 1996.
But apparently unsettled by being discovered, he then vanished into the forest again and has not been seen since.
The mushroom pickers passed on the photographs they had taken to an Italian organisation called Penelope, which helps locate missing persons.
With the help of a similar Spanish organisation called Sos Desaparecidos, Mr Sanchez's family were tracked down.
A graduate in medicine who was born in Bilbao, Mr Sanchez is believed to have been suffering from severe depression when he fled Spain at the age of 26.
After so many years, his family had given up all hope and in 2010 he was formally declared to be presumed dead by the Spanish authorities.
Now his family are celebrating the fact that he is still alive and have travelled to Italy in the hope of being reunited.
"When they told us that it was him, it was as if our son had been born again," his mother, Amelia, 65, told the Italian press.
"He's alive and that is the important thing. We will respect his wishes and his freedom, but we won't go home until we have at least given him a hug, even for a few moments."
In a tweet, his sister, Olga, wrote: "Thank you for having given us this new hope, which alleviates the tremendous drama that we have had to endure."
Mr Sanchez was found living in a makeshift shelter in the Maremma region of southern Tuscany, an area of rolling hills and thick forests which is home to healthy populations of deer and wild boar.
He had three jerry cans for holding rainwater and a tarpaulin that he had strung between the trees to give him shelter. It was not clear how he had managed to find food.
He was apparently able to gather bits of flotsam and jetsam while scouting along beaches on the Tuscan coast, about an hour's walk from his hideout.
He chose for his hiding place a national park near the coastal town of Follonica, opposite the island of Elba.
On Sunday his parents travelled to the area in the hope of making contact with their long-lost son, without success.
"It would be enough to see him for just half an hour. Then if it is his wish, we would not try to see him again," his mother told Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Marcello Stella, the mayor of the nearby village of Scarlino, said: "We checked the place where he had his shelter but there was no trace of it any longer. Who knows where he might be now."
The mayor of Cazalla de la Sierra, a town near Seville where Mr Sanchez had lived with his family, described him as a studious young man who had studied psychology as well as medicine, and spoke several languages.
"He left behind friends and fellow students. Although he was quite introverted, he was very polite and responsible", Sotero Martín told the newspaper La Razón.
While Italy is densely populated in parts, it has vast areas of mountains and forests in which a person could conceivably live without being detected.
In fact the depopulation of rural areas means that forested areas are increasing.
The abandonment of farmland has led to the re-establishment of forests on a vast scale.
More than a third of Italy is now covered in trees, according to a report released last year by the National Inventory of Forests.
Telegraph, UK
