GREECE: Police continue search in mystery of missing Cypriot scientist

A British-Cypriot woman who was last seen Monday going for a run on a Greek island has disappeared prompting a massive police search.

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Natalie Christopher, 34, an astrophysicist who lives in Cyprus, was first reported missing by her 38-year-old Cypriot partner, with whom she had been vacationing on the Greek island of Ikaria

Police, firefighters, Coast Guard officers, volunteers and a helicopter crew were participating in the search for Christopher, with Greek police officials stating that at this stage nothing is ruled out.

Christopher is believed to have gone missing after going for an early morning run on the Aegean Island. Her partner told police that upon noticing that she was not in the room when he woke up, he had called her on her cellphone with Christopher telling him she had gone for a run.

The couple were planning to return home to Cyprus that evening.

Police are currently focusing their search on the area from where her phone had last sent out a signal.

Officers are puzzled as her phone was appeared to be switched off after Christopher was reported missing on Monday noon, but was switched on Tuesday afternoon.

Police officers had sent her two SMS without reply.

Christopher, a known hiking, running and mountain racing enthusiast, is also acknowledged for her contribution as a social activist, striving to lessen the gender disparity that exists in sports participation in Cyprus.

She launched the Cyprus Girls Can campaign to get women and girls, of all ages and abilities all across Cyprus, more involved in sport.

She is an Oxford University graduate, currently a researcher at the European University Cyprus.

Christopher’s case comes after the death of American scientist Suzanne Eaton, whose body was found in an abandoned World War II Nazi bunker on the Greek island of Crete last month.

Eaton, a 59-year-old molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany, had been on the island for a conference and disappeared while out for a run.

A 27-year-old local man has been charged with rape and murder in Eaton's death.