The Indian Navy has joined the ongoing Likoni Ferry Channel tragedy search operation on a volunteer basis.
Members of the navy who arrived in the country on Sunday on a different mission, the counter-piracy, have agreed to help other divers in the ongoing operation.
However, they gave a condition that before they venture into any misprision at the channel, it should be declared a military zone.
“The Indian navy has also promised to join the mission on condition that this whole area will be under military. This is why we have been asked to leave and give them room… to carry out the operation,” the Kenya Ferry Services (KFS) Chairman Dan Mwazo said in a media briefing on Monday as quoted by K24.
The channel was on Monday afternoon declared a no go zone for the public.
Bodies of Mariam Kighenda and her four-year-old daughter, Amanda Mutheu have been under the water since last Sunday when their car slid from MV Harambee which was moving from Likoni mainland to Mombasa Island and plunged into the Indian Ocean.
Since then, divers from different government agencies led by those from the Kenya Navy have been camping at the scene, but are yet to retrieve the bodies nor the car.
Other divers from South Africa also arrived on the channel, Monday.