Search for missing Nepal backpacker

Alex had been due back for his mother's birthday in April

The sister of an Essex backpacker missing in Nepal said she was not giving up hope of finding her brother.

Dr Anna Ratnasothy, 28, is in Nepal trying to find her 24-year-old brother Alex who has not been seen since February.

Dr Ratnasothy has taken time off from her job as a paediatrician at the Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford to travel from village to village, putting up posters in her efforts to trace her brother's last known movements.

Alex, a computer software engineer from Grays, left home to travel in April 2002.

Extended stay

His last e-mail was sent on 21 February just before he set out from Jiri to head to Everest Base Camp on the first leg of a mountain trek in the foothills of the Himalayas.

His family has heard nothing from him since.

Speaking from a guesthouse in Kathmandu on Monday, his sister, who has been in Nepal since July, told BBC Essex she was not giving up hope of finding him.

Dr Ratnasothy has already extended her stay. She had been due to return to England in October.

Television appeal

"I keep changing my ticket.

"At the moment I am planning to come back for Christmas but it really depends on whether we get any more clues or anything else to follow up," she said.

She has established that Alex was robbed and that he had left his passport at a travel agency in Kathmandu when he applied for a visa to visit Tibet.

Dr Ratnasothy's trawl for her missing brother has included trips to Tibet and India and an appeal on local television.