This archive report was first published on 5 October 2019.
On Friday, Swedish scuba diver Volker Bassen briefed the media on the challenges he faced while searching for the bodies of Mariam Kighenda and her 4-year-old daughter, Amand Mutheu, who died in the Likoni Ferry accident.
Bassen, who had volunteered to locate and retrieve the bodies, explained that the strong currents and poor visibility in the Indian Ocean made the retrieval of the bodies 'close to an impossibility.'
Despite making a total of 16 dives into the ocean, Bassen and his team were unable to locate the car in which Kighenda and her daughter were traveling.
However, Bassen did report two promising sightings of where the car could be, one at 40m and the other at 50m, but was unable to dive into the 50m location due to ferry traffic.
Bassen praised the Kenya Navy for their bravery and skill in diving in shark-infested waters without shark shields, saying they were 'brilliant' and 'incredible co-divers.'
He also apologized for failing to recover the bodies, saying that the recovery operation was a daunting task and that he had underestimated the conditions in the ocean.
Government spokesperson Rtd Col Cyrus Oguna said that the recovery operation would continue, relying on science to determine and verify possible locations where the vehicle and the bodies can be found.
He also acknowledged that the recovery operation was a challenging task and that nobody could predict how it would end.
On Saturday, the Navy will concentrate on one of the two promising locations, but Bassen will not be involved in any further recovery operation as he has to travel.
