Ocean Search for Natalee Holloway Called Off in Aruba (UPDATE: Resumed Friday)

The ocean search that had been conducted by both the Aruban and Dutch Coast Guard has been called off. The searches off the coast of Aruba had begun on April 16 according to reports.

AMSTERDAM — Coast Guard vessels have stopped searching the waters around the Caribbean island of Aruba for missing US teenager Natalee Holloway.

The authorities have been searching the coastal waters with sonar equipment since 16 April but US and Aruban media sources said the operation was suspended on Thursday, without any apparent success.

The Aruban coast guard had been using sonar and other equipment to check an unspecified area off the Caribbean island of Aruba.

The Aruban coast guard searched offshore Wednesday for missing teenager Natalee Holloway, authorities said. Officials again refused to give any details about a 19-year-old man arrested over the weekend in connection with the year-old case.

The public prosecutor’s office said the coast guard was using sonar and other equipment to check an unspecified area off the Caribbean island. The search, the latest of many for the missing Clinton, Miss. native, was in its fourth day but had not previously been disclosed.

Aruba Coast Guard Ends Holloway Search

ORANJESTAD, Aruba – Aruba’s coast guard has at least temporarily halted a search for the Alabama teen who went missing during a high school graduation trip to this Dutch Caribbean island.

The Aruban coast guard did not search Thursday for Natalee Holloway, who was last seen leaving a bar with three young men on May 30, said Mariaine Croes, a spokeswoman for the Aruban prosecutor’s office.

Croes said she could not say whether the search, which began Sunday, would continue on Friday.
(AP via Yahoo News)

UPDATE: 4/21/06: Search For Natalee Holloway Continues

According to CBS reports, the ocean search for Natalee Holloway will resume again on Friday.

A team of several boats from Aruba’s coast guard was planning to use sonar equipment Friday and focusing on the area off the shore of the hotel where Holloway stayed, at the northern end of the island, reports CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano.