RCMP and Search and Rescue Alberta say they are ending the search for six-year-old Darius Macdougall. <\/p>\n
RCMP had maintained optimism for finding the boy alive, but said last weekend his chances of survival had decreased to less than five per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Darius is still in the search area, it is presumed he is no longer alive,\u201d Cpl. Gina Slaney said in an update on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The boy was last seen on Sept. 21 while walking with six young relatives in the area. The family from Lethbridge had been camping in the area.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of responders have combed through the mountainous southern Alberta terrain searching for the boy, who has autism, for the last 11 days.<\/p>\n
Helicopters, dogs, drones and underwater teams have also been used to search for Darius. <\/p>\n
The boy\u2019s autism likely complicated the search effort, according to rescuers, because it may have prevented him from responding to his name. <\/p>\n
RCMP maintain there has been nothing to indicate foul play in the boy\u2019s disappearance. <\/p>\n
The boy\u2019s family says they\u2019re grateful to the searchers and won\u2019t rest until he\u2019s brought home. <\/p>\n
RCMP and Search and Rescue crews say they will now rely on tips from the public, who will once again be able to enter the area.<\/p>\n
-With files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RCMP and Search and Rescue Alberta say they are ending the search for six-year-old Darius Macdougall. RCMP had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-183389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}