The mother of a graduate who vanished in Mali eight years ago, is holding on to the hope her son is still alive.

Christian Velten, from Brighton, disappeared in the West African country in April 2003, while on a five-month expedition retracing the steps of the 18th century Scottish explorer Mungo Park.

His mother Pauline Velten said she still clings to the possibility that her son will one day return.

She said: “It’s very distressing but you just hope one of these days a miracle will happen and he will turn up.

“You always have hope.”

Christian sparked an Interpol search when he went missing.

He told his parents in March 2003 that he was staying in a tent in the grounds of a hotel in the desert village of Kita and was last seen alive outside a café on the outskirts of the town of Bamako.

But he failed to reach the airport to board his flight home in July.

Christian, then 28, hoped to boost his profile as a travel writer and was equipped only with a digital camera, a donkey and £3,000 in foreign currency.

Six months after his disappearance two Sussex detectives flew to Mali to help authorities with the search and his retired parents Tim and Pauline had also hired a private detective to find him.

Mrs Velten, from Burwash, said her son’s Edinburgh University friends held a party each year on his birthday to keep his memory alive.

Mungo Park was 34 when he drowned in what is now Nigeria on his second expedition in 1805.