KOTA KINABALU: The body of a nine-year-old girl was found on Thursday (Oct 5), four days after she and her elder sister were thought to have drowned in the Pegalan, a river in Sabah’s interior Keningau district.
Villagers found the remains of Arlina Jabar near Kampung Lingkudou at 6.15pm.
Keningau Fire and Rescue chief Sharudy Delamin said Arlina’s body was found 13.55km from where she had gone missing.
Firemen and villagers had earlier, on Tuesday (Oct 3), found the body of her sister Azila, aged 12, some 1.7km from where the siblings were last seen.
“Our team rushed to the area to retrieve the body after being alerted of the discovery,” he said, adding the body has been handed over to the police for the next course of action.
He added the search operation, which took four days, had rescuers employing various methods to look for the victims in a search area covering a 7km radius.
This included a water surface search and riverbank scouring by the police and Civil Defence Force besides firemen and villagers, he said.
The siblings were believed to be playing by the river bank when Arlina fell into the river at Kampung Lingkudou at about 4.30pm on Monday (Oct 2).
Azila is believed to have jumped into the river to save her sister, but both disappeared into the river. Firemen were alerted at 5.07pm on the same day.
In an unrelated case, a two-year-old boy was found safe after being reported missing by his family members at an orchard near their home at Kampung Batu 27, Jalan Keningau-Tenom, on Friday (Oct 6).
Firemen who reported to the emergency found Aydden Lo Jie Lie at 10.13am, just slightly over an hour after he was reported to have gone missing.
A Fire and Rescue Department spokesman said the boy was found some 2km from the house, adding the child was then returned to his family.
