110 Icelanders have vanished without a trace over the past 40 years, and not all of them at sea.
Missing persons in Iceland, while regularly reported in the news, almost always end up found in good health shortly after their disappearance is reported. However, Vísir reports, 110 Icelanders have disappeared over the past 40 years, never to be seen again.
Over 70 of these Icelanders have been lost at sea – perhaps unsurprising for a sea-faring people with a vast fishing territory that often experiences inclement weather. But despite the relatively small size of the country, there have been instances of Icelanders on dry land vanishing. One famous case took place in Keflavík in 1994.
Two boys, Óskar Halldórsson and Júlíus Karlsson, aged 14 and 15 respectively, were last seen in Keflavík on the night of January 24 of that year. The last sighting of the boys was between five and six that afternoon, when witnesses reportedly saw the pair running down a street, laughing and looking over their shoulders. Witnesses assumed the two boys had gotten up to trouble and were escaping being caught.
A search and rescue operation involving 400 people, covering both sea and land, were unable to find any traces of the two boys. They were declared legally dead three years later.
To this day, no one knows what became of Óskar and Júlíus.
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