Two teenage sweethearts who flew from Manchester to the Caribbean after escaping one of the country’s top boarding schools have been ‘located by police’ at a beach resort in the Dominican Republic.
Sixth formers Edward Bunyan and girlfriend Indira Gainiyeya went missing from Stonyhurst College in Lancashire in the early hours of Monday morning.
However, it is now thought that local police have located the pair at a five-star beach resort in the Dominican Republic but have not approached the teens.
A Lancashire police spokesman said: “We are carrying out a number of inquiries to try and trace them to ensure that they are safe and well. Their families have been informed and are being kept fully up to date.”
”We believe that we know their location and we are currently working with foreign police services to track them down.”
It is now believed that the couple’s parents are en-route to the Dominican Republic.
The pair are not thought to have contacted their families or the school and pupils at Stonyhurst have set up a #WheresIndira and #WheresBunyan hashtag on Twitter to help track them down.
A spokesman for the school said that the families of the couple were ‘desperately concerned’ about their welfare and pupils were ‘increasingly anxious’.
It is thought Indira, originally from Kyzylorda in Kazakhstan, enrolled at the 468 pupil school last September to study A Levels after attending Ovingdean Hall International Language College near her family home in Brighton to learn English.
Keep fit-fanatic Bunyan, from Cheltenham, Gloucester, who has dual British and Spanish citizenship is believed to have enrolled at the school in 2010 after studying at educational establishments in Portugal and Canada.
Last night a source said: “It’s the talk of the whole school. It’s created a real buzz in class.
“There are rumours about how they managed to escape but no one really knows.”
Stonyhurst College, which has 310 boarders, was founded in 1593 as a boys school but today is a Roman Catholic mixed boarding and day school run by Jesuit priests.
The school’s alumni include seven archbishops, a Peruvian president, a Bolivian president, a New Zealand prime minister, a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence and several writers, sportsmen, and politicians.
Seven have been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry – paintings of them adorn the walls of the Top Refectory in the school.
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