The friend who found missing British tourist Hannah Almond after she disappeared in Peru has described the moment they reunited.
Ms Almond, 32 from Grimsby, went missing after being violently robbed by locals and left sleeping under a bridge with no money or passport for a month.
She was found on Sunday by Piero Villanueva, who she had met briefly in Lima and who travelled to Cusco to look for her after MailOnline raised awareness of her plight.
‘I have just found her. She is safe and well. I’d like to thank the authorities and the people who contacted me so I could help her,’ he told Cusco TV 47 immediately after.
‘Hannah recognised me and approached me crying and I asked her to leave with me,’ he said. ‘Thank God she’s safe.’
He told the outlet that he was ‘talking with her mum but she’s an elderly lady and we don’t want to worry her anymore’.
He said they would now ‘see what [Hannah’s mother] wants to do’ next.
Villanueva had been in contact with the consul and Hannah’s friends, working together to follow her movements after she disappeared on May 24.
He had searched for Ms Almond into the night on Saturday around the area she was last seen, the San Pedro market.
Searching from 7pm until 3am on Saturday, they continued their search of the city on Sunday and found Ms Almond asleep and slumped on the pavement.
‘Hannah recognised me and approached me crying and I asked her to leave with me. Thank God she’s safe,’ Piero Villanueva told local TV. Pictured: The two are after the rescue
Mr Villanueva (left) travelled to Cusco to help Hannah Almond (right) after he learned of her ordeal
Ms Almond, 32, was feared to have been trafficked after vanishing in Peru
Mr Villanueva had been in contact with the consul and Ms Almond’s friends, working together to follow her movements after she disappeared on May 24
‘It is a huge relief that she has been found,’ one friend told MailOnline.
‘When she stopped contacting people we were worried she had been trafficked and we would never hear from her again.
‘After the MailOnline story, a guy she met in Lima who she only knew for about four days caught a flight to Cusco straight away and just started wandering the streets asking after her.
‘He found her just asleep on the street, and one of her friends has flown out from the UK to Cusco to try and persuade her to come home. We want her home in the next few days.’
Mr Villanueva said: ‘I met Hannah in Lima, where I come from. I decided to travel to Cusco at the request of her friends and family after seeing her situation online – she was sleeping under a bridge.’
The fashion graduate from Grimsby had been on a yoga retreat to ‘find herself’ since March when she was attacked by locals, who set fire to her belongings – leaving her sleeping rough.
Friends, writing on her GoFundMe page, said she had left for Peru ‘hoping for adventure’ but instead ‘found herself in a terrifying and heartbreaking situation’.
Mr Villanueva told local news he was ‘talking with her mum’ to plan next steps for Ms Almond
Trauma from the attack has left Ms Almond too scared to accept help from embassy officials
Hannah is pictured in Cusco after losing all her belongings
All of her belongings were burnt (above) after she was robbed in Peru
They said she was robbed and assaulted, losing her passport, phone and all of her money.
Struggling to deal with the brazen attack, they said her mental health had ‘severely declined’ and ‘in the midst of a mental health crisis’ she had begun ‘living under a bridge with a homeless man she befriended’ in Cusco.
Even after she was found, friends said she refused to accept assistance, with psychosis triggered by the trauma of being violently robbed leaving her too frightened to engage with officials or locals.
‘We know she has been refusing help due to the complexity of her mental health so it is most likely that she will need to placed into psychiatric care before getting a flight back,’ they said in an update, with the page still collecting donations.
‘This is an ongoing process but we are doing all we can to bring her back safely!’
Mark Atkinson, the British Consul in Peru, told local media Ms Almond arrived in Cusco in early March as a tourist and did not plan to overstay her visa, however her immigration status is now in limbo.
‘She is in an illegal situation. Her tourist visa has already expired,’ Atkinson explained.
Ms Almond was left stranded, penniless and unable to reliably contact her family after the attack
Ms Almond had been in Peru since March on a yoga retreat
Adding that the embassy is co-ordinating with local police and has also offered direct support, including hotel accommodations and money for food but she keeps returning to the same bridge.
‘Sometimes we’ve paid for hotel stays, given her money for food, that sort of thing. But she always ends up coming back here,’ he added.
More than 100,000 Brits travel to Peru every year, with most stopping in Cusco – the gateway to Machu Picchu and the Inca Trail.
Travel advice from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office warns that a number of British tourists have been targeted by armed robbers in recent years.
It says: ‘Personal attacks, including sexual assaults, are infrequent but do happen, mostly in the Cusco and Arequipa areas.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .