Pakistan
Impossible to bring back corpses of Ali Sadpara, others from K2, confirms Sajid Sadpara in video message
Hiker Sajid Ali Sadpara in a video message confirmed that he has found the dead bodies of his father Ali Sadpara, John Snorri and Juan Pablo Mohr near the bottleneck of K2 and that it was difficult to bring the dead bodies down.
Taking to Twitter, Sajid in a video message confirmed that his team has recovered the bodies at an altitude of around 8,400 metres on K2.
Sajid said he reached there along with Canadian filmmaker Elia Saikaly and Nepal's Pasang Kaji Sherpa on a search mission.
“The bodies of Mohammad Ali Sadpara and John Snorri were at a difficult place,” he said, adding that they couldn't bring the corpses down.
He said that they were trying to put bodies near the path leading to the K2 base camp.
Earlier, the body of mountaineer Muhammad Ali Sadpara was finally retrieved from 300 meters beneath the bottleneck of K2, Alpine Club of Pakistan disclosed Monday.
Sadpara began his journey to summit K2 in February this year but had gone missing. The rescue operation failed to find the missing mountaineer.
The government of Pakistan later announced on February 18 that Sadpara and his team were no more alive.
At a press conference, the Minister of Tourism for Gilgit Baltistan (GB) Raja Nasir Ali Khan had said that considering the extreme weather conditions on K2, the government, Pakistan Army and families of missing mountaineers had concluded that the climbers are no more in this world.
“Muhammad Ali Sadpara and Sajid Sadpara will be awarded civil honours. It has been proposed to Federal Government to attribute Skardu Airport to Muhammad Ali Sadpara. A mountaineering school will be set up under the name of Ali Sadpara and the provincial government would support Sadpara’s family financially,” he said.
The provincial minister further said that educational scholarships will be awarded to the children of national heroes.
Also speaking on occasion, Sajid Ali Sadpara said that his father and two other team members went missing on an expedition to summit K2.
“I, along with several other international mountaineers, have a firm belief that accident happened on their way back after they had summited K2. In this time of immense grief, the support and love by fellow Pakistanis have been a source of great encouragement of money. Pakistan has lost a patriotic national hero,” he said.
Sajid Sadpara vowed to continue his father’s unfilled mission and dreams while extending gratitude to Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa for providing help in the rescue mission.
Thank you to the brave pilots of Military Aviation Skardu. All available resources were used in search and rescue operations. Modern technology was used in this long rescue operation,” he said.
On February 5, renowned Pakistani mountaineer Muhammad Ali Sadpara and his expedition team went missing while trying to summit the missing K2 and contact with them could not be established since Friday.
Sadpara along with Icelandic mountaineer John Snorri, and Juan Pablo Mohr Prieto was on the K2 Winter Expedition 2021 when they went missing all of a sudden.
Sajid Ali Sadpara, son of a much-loved mountaineer, was also part of the expedition but came back from the bottleneck after experiencing difficulty with his oxygen cylinder.
Soon after, Pakistan Army launched a rescue and search operation using helicopters in extremely challenging weather and flew as high as 7,000 meters but was unable to spot anyone.