No Miracle: Body of Lost U.C. Student Reportedly Found in Malawi

Gabriel Buchmann

​The international effort made by family and friends of Gabriel Buchmann to track down the lost Fulbright scholar in Malawi came to a somber conclusion, as a body believed to be that of the Brazilian and French citizen was discovered yesterday.

Malawian media quoted Ralph Makondetsa, the public relations officer for the Mulanje police, as confirming that a trio of locals stumbled across "the dead body of this unidentified white man" while searching for plants that are used as brooms. Buchmann, 28, had been missing since July 17 when he attempted to climb Mount Mulanje alone.

The Web site run by the incoming UCLA doctoral student's family and friends -- a number of whom were on the scene in Malawi  and presumably identified the body --  yesterday confirmed that Buchmann was dead.

"It is the hour of goodbye," reads the Portuguese-language Ajude Gabriel Buchmann Web site. "It is with much pain that we give notice that ... after 28 years of giving joy and showing the way, Gabriel departed for the spiritual world."

The date and cause of Buchmann's death have not yet been determined. He is reportedly the second hiker to die on the mountain in the past seven years.

Buchmann had been on the last legs of a yearlong tour around the more impoverished parts of the world in preparation for commencing his Ph.D in public policy this fall. "He could have found a job in any investment bank in Brazil or Wall Street and hit the jackpot," his friends and family wrote on the Web site quickly created last month to raise funds for search parties. "He wanted to make this place a better world, and off he went on this global trip, to get to know the poorest countries."