The Czech Foreign Ministry registered 50 foreign deaths of Czech citizens during the summer tourist season, from 15 June to 5 August, the ministry’s press officer Mariana Wernerova told CTK.
She said the number of consular cases including deaths has increased to the levels recorded in the years before the coronavirus pandemic, reflecting the fact that people have started to travel more again.
Last year, the ministry recorded 105 deaths among Czechs abroad during the tourist season (15 June to 15 September). In 2020, this figure fell to 60; fewer people died that summer because travelling was limited due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Deaths among Czech citizens abroad are registered most often in popular tourist destinations, mainly in Croatia, Italy, Turkey, Spain, France and Greece, according to the ministry’s data. Tragic events concerning Czech holiday-makers also occur in neighbouring countries such as Austria and Slovakia
Czech media reported earlier this week that the dead body of a Czech man was found on a ship near the Italian island of Elba, where he was on holiday. The cause of his death is not yet known. Emergency services rescued two Czech hikers in the Italian and Austrian Alps on Wednesday, both of whom ended up in hospital.
At the end of July, police discovered the body of a 77-year-old Czech man who lived in a caravan in the Italian resort of Bibione, and the bodies of a missing Czech man and woman on the Barre des Ecrins mountains in the French Alps. Two Czechs died in early July on the Marmolada mountain in the Italian Dolomites when a glacier collapsed.
