Three Lamu fishermen who had gone missing since Wednesday this week have been found alive and safe.
Aboud Obbo, Mohamed Obbo and Aboud Mzee had gone fishing when their dhow capsized at Pezali area, near Shanga-Rubu island in Lamu East at around 9 am owing to strong winds blowing over the Indian Ocean at the moment.
Their relatives placed distress calls to the Kenya Maritime Authority (KMA) office and county disaster response team after they failed to reach the fishermen on the phone after which a search was started.
The fishermen swam for hours to the open seas before they were finally spotted and rescued by rangers from the Pate Marine Community Conservancy- on Wednesday evening at around 5.30 pm.
Lamu county Disaster Response team leader Luqman Aziz said if it were not for their swimming skills and the desire to stay alive, they would have died as they spent an entire night trying to swim to safety in the ocean.
“They swam for over 8 hours and any swimmer here will tell you such is extremely exhausting for muscles especially when there is nothing to grab on to rest. But we are glad they are safe,” he said.
Aziz said the fishermen have since been reunited with their families and described their condition as shaken but relieved to be alive.
“They lost all their belongings but we recovered their dhow,” he said.
On Friday, Lamu county Director for Meteorological Services Edward Ngure warned sailors, fishermen and sea travellers about strong winds being experienced in the Indian Ocean at the moment posing a grave danger to navigation.
Sea users have been advised to strictly adhere to various weather updates from the office so as to know when its safe to ply the Indian ocean and when not to.
They are equally forbidden from plying dangerous channels like the Mkanda, Manda Bruno, Mlango wa Tanu, Mlango wa Bomani, Mlango wa Alii, Mlango wa Kipungani and the Shella channels until further notice.
The channels are experiencing extremely high tides that have rendered them impassable.
“We have formed a WhatsApp group where we have added all Beach Management Unit leaders where we provide daily weather updates. The updates are then disseminated to the various BMUs members‚” Ngure said.
He said it is easier because all sailors and fishermen belong to a certain BMU group.
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
