Durban - The bodies of two brothers who drowned at a Richards Bay beach during an Easter weekend celebration had been recovered by sea rescuers, police said on Sunday.
The siblings had been on a trip with a group of churchgoers from Bethal, Mpumalanga, for an Easter weekend church service near the beach.
The church had erected a tent about 500 metres from the beach in an open space.
The bodies of Bheki and Thembelihle Mthethwa, 13 and 15, were recovered on Sunday afternoon.
They were apparently warned by their mother not to go to the beach.
The distraught mother, Nomthandazo, told the Daily News she had been pleading with her younger son to go and shower in the change rooms before he slipped away with other boys to the beach.
It was not clear if there were any lifeguards on duty at the time of their drowning.
“I had told him to go and shower, but he refused,” said his mother on Sunday.
“I warned him not to go. I have a heavy heart now because had he listened to me none of this would have happened, both my sons would be alive,” she said crying.
Mthethwa said her older son, Thembelihle, had been trying to save Bheki when they were both swept into the sea.
Neither knew how to swim, she said.
“We got a phone call to rush to the beach and my mind shut down; I could not believe what happened,” she said.
Provincial police spokesman, Major Thulani Zwane, said police were investigating an inquest docket for the drownings, and said the boys’ bodies were recovered on Sunday.
The National Sea Rescue Institute spokesman, Craig Lambinon, said rescuers had been performing a training exercise just before 2pm when they were alerted to the drownings between Bay Hall and Pelican Beach.
Bishop Sakhile Buthelezi, of the Utholakele uMuzi Woku-thula Christian Church, who had been leading the contingent, said his heart was broken.
He said they were concerned that there was no swimming signage along the area where the boys drowned and called for the signage to be put up to minimise loss of life.
“The sad thing is that people swim there and there is no signage to say no swimming.”
Daily News
* Use IOL’s Facebook and Twitter pages to comment on our stories. See links below.