This archive report was first published on 4 October 2019.
Published on October 4, 2019, a Swedish scuba diver living in Kenya has volunteered to scale down the Likoni channel waters to retrieve the bodies of two victims who drowned last Sunday after their vehicle plunged into the ocean from a ferry.
Volker Bassen, 51, a whales and shark expert, has offered to retrieve the bodies of Mariam Kighenda and her daughter Amanda Mutheu from the ocean for free. Bassen is the founder of the East African Whale Shark Trust and has a rich portfolio in deep water diving.
He has been involved in rescue missions in different countries and was the diver contacted to recover the body of a Swiss national in 2012 after a helicopter plunged in Lake Michelson. Bassen has also established several diving training schools in Kenya and has trained divers who now work in various dive destinations around the world.
He said he would use his resources to compliment the good work the Kenya Navy divers were doing, adding that he would never attempt such a task if it was not for his shark shield device. Bassen said the retrieval work was a daunting task due to the fast decomposition of bodies in tropical waters.
He said he would attach a rope and a lifting bag to lift the car up to the water surface, and with a team of other divers already on site with specialized equipment, it would take them two hours to retrieve the bodies.
Meanwhile, the government has been using robots to locate the bodies, with spokesperson retired Col. Cyrus Oguna claiming that the divers are relying on touch and based on that touch they can be able to interpret if what they are touching is a vehicle.
