This archive report was first published on 8 October 2019.
On October 7, 2019, a team of eight divers from South Africa joined the Kenya Navy in the search for the bodies of Mariam Kighenda and her four-year-old daughter Amanda Mutheu, who drowned in the Indian Ocean on September 29.
The family had contracted five divers from SubSeas Services, a commercial diving company operating in South Africa, but the government brought in three additional divers from South Africa to assist in the retrieval mission.
Heavy rains and poor visibility had hampered the operation in the past week, but the team was boosted on Monday after the government procured high-tech equipment, including advanced remote-operated cameras with high resolution.
According to Col Lawrence Gituma, the head of the rescue team, the new equipment will speed up the retrieval of the bodies. “The ones we have are good, but we are getting more that are advanced, which will give us a better resolution,” he said.
However, a pathologist has cast doubts on the condition of the bodies, citing factors like water temperatures and predation that may have affected their condition over the past eight days.
