Turks 'only pretending' to search for missing Noah's Ark explorer

• Donald Mackenzie is an experienced mountaineer Picture: Murdo Mackenzie

Donald Mackenzie, 47, a Christian missionary from Stornoway, disappeared on an expedition on Mount Ararat in Turkey. The last contact with him was on 28 September and he was reported missing by a friend on 14 October.

Mr Mackenzie travels every year to Mount Ararat, the highest peak in Turkey at 16,945 feet above sea level. The Bible identifies the mountain range as the Ark's resting place after the flood.

Turkish rescue team AKUT mounted a search on the mountain this week but their efforts were hampered by heavy snow.

Mr Mackenzie's mother, Margaret, told The Scotsman yesterday she is frustrated at the lack of help: "They are not doing anything. It is just a show. They don't want to look like they're doing nothing, but they are just pretending."

Mrs Mackenzie has contacted her MSP and said that Interpol had been involved in trying to find out what has happened to her son. She also funded a small Turkish rescue team with 1,500 of her savings, but they also failed to locate her son.

She said: "In this country they would have planes or helicopters out looking for him but I feel out there maybe they don`t want to spend the money, it's such a different country.

"Donald is a one-off, he is intrepid and fearless. It's all so very sad. I don't know what on earth we are supposed to do now.

"I haven't given up hope. I just hope he has been taken prisoner as I think if anybody can stay alive it would be Donald."

Mrs Mackenzie said her grandchildren hero-worship him. An eight-year-old grandson put a picture of Mr Mackenzie in his schoolbook with a pot in front with the words "for my tears".

Mr Mackenzie's brother, Derick, who lives in Edinburgh, claimed that he had been "lied" to by the rescuers who claimed they had to abandon the search because they had run into Kurdish PKK terrorists.

Writing on an internet blog, he said: "I have been told - this information came from a local source in Dogubayazit, the town at the foot of Ararat - that the AKUT team consisted of only six men, that they did not want to be there, didn't reach the height Donald had reached and just slept a night on the mountain and went home."

He added: "I do know that they didn't reach the height that Donald reached because his last communication was from 14,700ft, and the chairman of AKUT told me that his people only reached 10,500ft.

"But he told me that they climbed the mountain on Monday, began searching on Tuesday and continued until today - three days of searching.

"My source tells me that the Turkish government just wanted to put on a show of searching, and in reality doesn't care at all and isn't in the least bit interested.

"I certainly believe the Turkish government are not interested - that is what I expected at the start and that is what I expect still."

He said he was told the rescuers will be carrying out no more searches for his brother because they think it would be unsafe due to possible terrorist activity.

"When I asked him if the men were armed, he told me that they could not be sure. Anyway, so much for AKUT."

On the website dedicated to him, Mr Mackenzie talks about the dangers of the mountain - particularly wolves.

"They (the wolves) eat humans up there quite regularly during the winter," he said.

"People who get into a dangerous situation, they eat them, they don't just kill them, they consume them.

"All they find is blood-stained, ragged clothes where they have got a person."

Mr Mackenzie's other brother, Ross, 49, who stays in Luxembourg, has previously said he had come to terms with the fact that he probably won't see him again.