The family of a 20-year-old man spent nine months desperately searching for him, unaware that his body had already been recovered from a river and placed in a morgue.

Now, relatives of Soufian Housni are demanding answers after discovering that the young man’s body had remained unidentified in a refrigerated chamber since September 2025.

The case has sparked an investigation by the Guardia Civil, which is examining the circumstances surrounding his death after his remains were finally identified this month through DNA testing.

Soufian’s body was discovered in the Segura River in El Raal, Murcia, on September 17 last year.

However, despite his family later reporting him missing, the discovery was never linked to the disappearance investigation, according to relatives.

By the time the missing persons report was filed in October 2025, Soufian had already been dead for weeks.

Yet nobody informed his family.

‘My brother was constantly looking for him,’ Soufian’s paternal uncle told local media.

‘It was a mistake. A missing persons report was filed, but nobody connected it to the body that had been found in the river.’

Believing the young man was still alive, relatives continued searching for clues.

At one point they tracked down his mobile phone, which had been left at a call shop after Soufian reportedly took it in for repairs due to a broken screen.

He never returned to collect it.

It was only in June 2026 that the family finally received devastating news.

DNA tests comparing samples from the unidentified body with Soufian’s mother confirmed a match.

‘They told us the body found in September belonged to Soufian,’ his uncle said.

‘Then they called my brother and informed him.’

The family subsequently learned that the body had been lying in the Murcia Institute of Legal Medicine for nine months.

They have still not been allowed to recover his remains while administrative procedures continue.

Meanwhile, the Guardia Civil has opened an investigation into what happened in the hours before his death.

According to relatives, a former girlfriend told them that Soufian had fallen in with ‘bad company’.

The family fears there may be more to the case than a simple accident.

‘We don’t know if someone pushed him into the river,’ his uncle said.

‘According to the forensic report, he drowned, but this death doesn’t make sense to us.’

He pointed to one detail that particularly troubles the family.

‘They found him still wearing his trainers. Why would someone enter the water wearing trainers?

‘We need a proper investigation. We need to know whether somebody pushed him. We need justice.’

Soufian’s father, Mehdi Housni, has also publicly called for authorities to establish exactly what happened.

‘I demand an immediate investigation into my son’s death as soon as possible,’ he said.

‘I also request civil compensation and urge the authorities to carry out a thorough investigation into this case.’

The grieving father, who was born in Morocco but whose son was born in Spain in 2006 in Granja de Rocamora, Alicante, said he cannot understand how authorities failed to notify the family for almost nine months.

‘I beg them to pay full attention to this young man, who was born here in Spain,’ he said.

‘What I cannot understand is how the authorities delayed informing us of his death from September 17, 2025, until June 4, 2026.’

The Guardia Civil investigation remains ongoing.