Sister's Bid To Find Missing Explorer Brother

The sister of a missing British explorer believes he is alive and living in Kenya.

Christian 'Chris' Velten, a zoologist from East Sussex, went missing 13 years ago.

He was on a journey across Western Africa in 2003, following in the footsteps of a famous explorer called Mungo Park - but 650 miles into his journey, he vanished.

An international search involving British police and African authorities failed to find out what had happened to him, leaving his family in limbo.

Last year his sister, Hannah Velten, decided to find him using social media - and since then she's been contacted by people in Kenya saying they have seen him.

She told Sky News: "I believe he's alive, I do. We miss him, we love him, we'd really like him to come forward."

His journey would have covered 2,000 miles across Western Africa.

He started in The Gambia in early February 2003, reaching Kita in Mali almost two months later, from where he phoned home for the last time.

The final official sightings of Mr Velten were recorded in and around the Malian capital Bamako.

His expedition was due to end in July in Nigeria, but he missed his flight home.

Speaking of when the family realised he was missing, his sister said: "It was just a slow realisation that something had gone wrong.

"We left it a couple of weeks ... because you think maybe he's just delayed, you make excuses for why he's not coming forward, because it was so out-of-character for Christian."

More hope has come from a well-known Kenyan conservationist called Raabia Hawa, who believes she was contacted by Chris on Facebook two years ago.

She told Sky News: "I get a lot of Facebook requests because of the nature of the work that I'm doing and mostly from people who are interested in conservation.

"I remember getting a friend request from Chris."