On Saturday, at 15h27 the NSRI duty crew was activated following reports from the Police that they were responding to the Wortelgat Camp and Conference Centre, on the Kleinrivier Lagoon, near Stanford, where a 12 year old boy, Yamkele George was missing in the lagoon.

"We hosted a group from CWD (Catholic Welfare Development) from Langa and Khayelitsha, consisting of 36 children and 3 adult leaders. This was an under 13 soccer team and we were requested to run some part time programming for the group during the weekend. Our standard protocols when working with groups is that our team of facilitators take full responsibility for the group whilst we run the programme and the group’s leaders are responsible for their youth at all times and especially when our team is not present during meal times, free time and bed time. On Saturday our team ran various programmes from 9:00 to 13:00 and they were due to continue with programming after lunch which was scheduled to start again at about 14:30.When our team arrived at the campsite after lunch, at approximately 14:20 they could not find any of the children or the CWD leaders, upon further investigation they found the CWD leaders in their rooms and they asked where the children were. They were then told that the children had gone to swim" said Riann Kruger, General Manager of Wortelgat Camp on Monday.

"The Wortelgat leaders raced to the lagoon where they found most of the children in the water and using floating objects and canoes, that belong to the Wortelgat Camp, and that are normally out of bounds unless the Wortelgat Camp leaders are in attendance.

The Wortelgat leaders rounded up the children but were told by a 12 year old boy, who was on a canoe with 2 other children of similar age that their friend had disappeared under water. 

It appears that the canoe had capsized and the 12 year old survivor had hung onto the capsized canoe and rescued two fellow youths but the 4th boy had disappeared under water." says Craig Lambinon of National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI) communications.

The Wortelgat team then notified Marius Boucher, the weekend duty manager. A search of the area ensued, both on land and in the water. Marius immediately alerted the NSRI and the police and both parties were on the scene shortly thereafter. The search was eventually called off when it became too dark to continue and police divers arrived again on Sunday morning. The body was found around midday and taken away by the Hermanus Police Pathology Unit. Police have opened an investigation.

Francois de Jongh

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