UPDATETwo British and French divers missing in Malaysia were rescued on Saturday. The 46-year-old British man and 18-year-old Frenchwoman were found by fishermen and handed over to the coastguard, local police said. A 14-year-old boy who holds both Dutch and British nationality is still missing. The rescued Briton is the boy’s father.
The party of four were reported missing on Wednesday when they failed to return to their boat after diving. They had gone diving near the island of Pulau Tokong Sanggol in southeastern Malaysia, about 15 kilometers from the coast. After a forty-minute dive, they surfaced, but their boat was nowhere to be seen.
A 35-year-old Norwegian was rescued on Thursday, she was the diving instructor of the group. The woman said she was swept away by the strong current. The captain of the boat that took them to the island has been arrested after he tested positive for drug use.
The man and woman rescued on Saturday were taken to a hospital and are not in danger of life, according to police. They had drifted quite a distance to the south. The 14-year-old who is still missing is the son of the 46-year-old Briton. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs previously announced that it would offer consular assistance to the teenager’s mother.
The search for the boy is being expanded. Helicopters, planes, divers and jet skis have been deployed to search a wider area for him. The police indicated on Saturday that the search will continue south towards Singapore and Indonesia.
The region where the group dived is a popular tourist area with many resorts. Tour operators in the area have been asked to suspend all diving and snorkelling trips for the time being to facilitate the search.
According to multiple sources, including France24, is the name of 14-year-old Dutchman Nathan Renze Chesters. His father would be Adrian Peter Chesters, according to, among others, the BBC, working at Shell as an engineer. The 18-year-old Frenchwoman is Alexia Alexandra Molina.
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