A 17-year-old Norwegian girl who disappeared during a night out in Marbella while celebrating her country’s World Cup victory over Brazil has been confirmed dead.
Nikoline’s family told Diario Sur that she was fatally struck by a lorry near Mijas in the early hours of Monday morning. A manhunt for the driver is still underway.
According to her parents, she was last seen between 3am and 4am at the Funky Buddha nightclub in Puerto Banus. Her friend claimed she saw Nikoline as she headed to the toilet, but then ‘lost sight of her’.
Mystery now surrounds how, around two hours later, she ended up walking along the deadly A-7 motorway near La Cala de Mijas – about a 20-minute drive from the nightclub where she was last seen alive.
According to her mother, the teenager had been holidaying on the Costa del Sol with her stepfather since June 19 and was due to fly home to Norway on Monday.
She had spent Sunday night in Puerto Banus with friends celebrating Norway’s victory over Brazil in the FIFA World Cup.
Her mother said the teenager disappeared between 3am and 4am after a friend briefly went to the bathroom at a nightclub.
When the friend returned, she had vanished.
The last location recorded by her mobile phone placed her on Avenida Julio Iglesias, just metres from the nightclub, at around 3.30am.
Shortly afterwards, the phone stopped transmitting and neither her friends nor her family were able to contact her.
At around 5.20am, emergency services received several calls reporting that a young woman had been struck by a lorry on the A-7 near La Cala de Mijas.
One witness told operators the driver failed to stop and fled the scene.
Paramedics from the 061 emergency service, officers from the Guardia Civil traffic division and road maintenance crews attended the incident, where the teenager was pronounced dead at the scene.
She was not carrying any identification.
Unaware of what had happened, her family spent the morning searching for her around Puerto Banus before reporting her disappearance to the Policia Nacional in Fuengirola.
Hours later, they were informed that she was the victim of the fatal motorway collision.
The Guardia Civil has launched an investigation to establish exactly how the tragedy unfolded and to identify and locate the lorry driver, who allegedly left the scene without stopping.
Authorities have not yet explained how the teenager came to be on the motorway nearly two hours after she was last seen in Puerto Banus, and the circumstances leading up to the collision remain under investigation.
Read more Andalucia news at the Spanish Eye.
