This archive report was first published on 8 October 2019.
On September 29, a devastating tragedy occurred at the Likoni Channel in Kenya when a car slipped off a ferry, resulting in the drowning of Mariam Kighenda and her four-year-old daughter Amanda Mutheu.
As of Tuesday, the Kenya Navy had yet to begin searching for the bodies, with government officials citing the non-arrival of equipment as the reason for the delay.
According to Col Lawrence Gituma, head of the rescue team, the necessary equipment is not available locally and will be imported from South Africa.
Meanwhile, private divers hired by the victims' family continued with their mission at the Likoni Channel on Tuesday morning, with five divers from SubSeas Services, a commercial diving company operating in South Africa, working alongside three others brought in by the government.
On Monday, the government announced that it had procured additional equipment, including an advanced system of remote-operated cameras with high resolution, to aid in the retrieval mission.
Col Gituma stated in a press release on Sunday that the new cameras would speed up the retrieval of bodies, saying, 'The ones we have are good, but we are getting more that are advanced, which will give us a better resolution.'
