{"id":669814,"date":"2026-09-03T03:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T03:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/669814\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T03:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T03:20:13","slug":"body-of-irish-mountaineer-located-in-pakistans-northern-region-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/669814\/","title":{"rendered":"Body of Irish mountaineer located in Pakistan\u2019s northern region \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emergency services in Pakistan<\/a> have located the body of a man they believe to be an Irish mountaineer who went missing while climbing in the country\u2019s mountainous northern region.<\/p>\n

Alexander Mark Harris (30), a dual Irish-British citizen who had been living in Pakistan, went missing at the weekend while climbing on the 4,060m Musa Ka Musalla mountain in the Siran Valley of the Mansehra district with British national Alun David Cooper Cledwyn.<\/p>\n

Pakistani police said the two men took separate routes back on their descent of the mountain with the plan to meet in the town of Mandachucha. <\/p>\n

Cledwyn reached the town but Harris did not, triggering a search-and-rescue operation involving about 200 people including police and personnel from Rescue 1122, the emergency rescue service in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.<\/p>\n

Khalid Iqbal, Manshera deputy police commissioner, told The Irish Times that Alexander Mark Harris\u2019s body had been located in a deep ravine using a drone but had not yet been recovered.<\/p>\n

The area where the body was found had experienced intermittent rain and an operation is now under way to recover his remains from the ravine. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an extremely difficult area,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n

He said there were narrow ravines, dangerous mountain tracks and deep drops in the area and that a single wrong step for a climber could have serious consequences.<\/p>\n

The search team included local residents and shepherds familiar with the terrain.<\/p>\n

Police described Alexander Mark Harris as an experienced trekker.<\/p>\n

Khan said he had previously trekked on Musa Ka Musalla and regularly travelled to different locations in the region to trek.<\/p>\n

The deceased worked for British global aid and development consultancy Adam Smith International in Islamabad, about 250km south of the area where he was hiking.<\/p>\n

A spokesman for the company said they were \u201cdevastated by the loss of our colleague\u201d, who he described as \u201ca much-loved member\u201d of the team.<\/p>\n

The company said he was a dual Irish-British citizen.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn experienced hiker and trail runner, he cared deeply for Pakistan, its people, its nature, and learned Urdu during his time there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply grateful to the hundreds of people who joined the search effort, including local residents, volunteers, police, rescue teams, forest department, members of Alex\u2019s trail running community, and the government of Pakistan that supported the operation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey searched tirelessly in difficult conditions, often in heavy rain, fog and poor visibility, over steep and challenging terrain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesman added: \u201cOur thoughts are with Alex\u2019s family, friends and colleagues at this incredibly difficult time. We remain focused on supporting his family.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emergency services in Pakistan have located the body of a man they believe to be an Irish mountaineer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,2214,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-669814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-pakistan","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117204957713065082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}