Maldives National Defense Force (MNDF)’s search for missing girl Aminath Shima Nafiz is one of the biggest operations the Coast Guard has ever carried out, says Major General Ahmed Mujthaba.
Speaking at a press conference on Saturday, Major General Mujthaba revealed that the search for Shima, who went missing after her dinghy overturned en route to Maamendhoo on 22nd February, is one of the biggest operations the MNDF CG has conducted in its history.
The operation has since turned into "a three-dimensional operation," revealed CG.
“We have used a lot of our resources for this search. The action plan for the search was formed after days of hard work. We are conducting searches through a ship, an underwater remote operated vehicle and a helicopter coordinated by the Rescue Coordination Center in Villingili island” said Mujthaba.
The missing 19-year-old girl is a student at Maamendhoo School who had boarded a flight from Male’ to Fonadhoo and then attempted to travel to Maamendhoo on a dinghy being steered by a boy from Laamu Gan. After the incident, the boy is to have placed her on top of the overturned dinghy before swimming to a nearby resort for help.
Within a few days, MNDF had covered five miles of the ocean in the area she went missing, to no avail.
Earlier in March, a group of three men, 22, 24 and 26, were arrested while attempting to flee with the younger sister of the missing girl. One of the men include Ibrahim Fazeel, the boy who was steering the dinghy that Shima had been traveling in before her disappearance.
The group has since been remanded by 15 days.
A Coast Guard diving team, a diving robot, which is known to have helped in finding persons missing at sea by operating depths under water, Coastguard Ship “Shaheed Ali” Six Senses resort staff, island residents and a helicopter have been active in the search for Shima.
