Missing Israeli hiker’s body found 3 days after falling into river in Mexico

The body of Israeli backpacker Yanai Rimon is found, three days after the 25-year-old was swept into a river in southern Mexico.

His family thanked his friends, Mexico’s Jewish community and local rescue services for assisting in the search. He was found not far from Mexico’s border with Guatemala.

Rimon was on a post-army trip with friends after completing service in a special forces unit.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that rescue services — both locals and private Israeli teams — searched for Rimon after he was pulled into a waterfall on Wednesday afternoon near Siltepec, in the Chiapas highlands close to the Guatemala border.

Rimon’s friends told Hebrew-language media he fell from a height of five meters (16 feet) into the coursing river and was subsequently sucked into the waterfall.