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Eastleigh boy found dead in school swimming pool after going missing

Ilyaas Abdikarim Ali Mohamud, 11, whose body was found in a school's swimming pool. (Handout)

By Mary Wambui | 21 Feb 2024

The deceased will be buried tomorrow at the Lang'ata cemetery.

A family in Eastleigh is mourning the sudden death of their 11-year-old son who had gone "missing" on Tuesday only for his body to be found in the school's swimming pool.

Ilyaas Abdikarim Ali Mohamud went missing on Tuesday at around 4 pm. His uncle had gone to pick him up but he was nowhere to be found.

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His uncle had dropped him at the Visa Oshwal Primary School at 7 am on Tuesday hoping to interact with him again after picking him up in the evening.

However, upon arriving at the school, the Grade two pupil was missing.

Efforts to trace the boy commenced immediately and went on till around 11 am on Wednesday when his body was found at his school's pool in unclear circumstances.

"We've been involved in searching for this child as business leaders, including reporting this case at Parklands police station, "Omar Hussein, one of the leaders, said.

According to the family, the school said the boy drowned on a day that was not dedicated to swimming lessons.

"The coach asked what class he is in, checked a paper he was holding and said his class did not have swimming classes on Tuesday," the boy's uncle said.

The family has accused the school of negligence in the handling of the case, claiming the boy could have been saved if the school started the search immediately.

"This is a case of high levels of negligence, if the child left class and failed to return for over one hour, the teacher did not get suspicious that something bad might have happened to him?" pondered Mohamed Adan, a friend of the family.

Police in Parklands are now investigating the circumstances in which the boy fell into the pool without anyone noticing and raising an alarm.

The school is yet to respond to the matter despite holding meetings with members of the board and Ministry of Education officials on Wednesday afternoon.

A post-mortem exercise conducted at Chiromo Mortuary confirmed that drowning was the leading cause of the boy's death.

"All the features are pointing to a case of drowning. There are no further injuries apart from the features of drowning, so the cause of death is drowning," Government Pathologist Peter Ndegwa said.

The family lawyer Danstan Omari said he shall be suing the school for negligence.

"We shall be moving further to look at other legal avenues both criminal and civil to redress the family that has lost the young future leader," said the lawyer.

The deceased will be buried tomorrow at the Lang'ata cemetery.