LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia – In a quiet room at a hospital in Labuan Bajo on Tuesday evening, dental records provided the certainty that ended an agonizing wait for a grieving family. The body recovered from the wreck of the KM Putri Sakinah has been formally identified as the 10-year-old son of Valencia CF women’s football coach, Martin Carreras Fernando.
The identification was carried out by a forensic medical team from the Indonesian National Police after more common methods proved impossible. The condition of the body could not be determined through fingerprints, a police source stated, leaving investigators to rely entirely on odontology. For this case, the child’s teeth became the decisive link between the unknown victim and the family searching for answers.
Budi Widjaja, head of the local maritime tourism association who is acting as liaison for the family, said the team confirmed the body as Fernando’s biological son. Police have requested that the identified boy be referred to only by his initial, M., to protect the privacy of the surviving relatives.
The confirmation follows the discovery of the child earlier on Tuesday, January 6, by a local fisherman. He was found inside the stranded hull of the pinisi schooner on Pede Beach, Komodo, approximately 7.48 nautical miles from where the vessel sank in the Padar Strait on December 26. The distance shows how far the currents carried the wreck and illustrates the strength of the sea moving through Komodo National Park.
His recovery brings the number of victims found to three. The coach, Fernando, and his 12-year-old daughter, L., were located in the preceding days. The coach’s wife and their youngest daughter, aged seven, survived the initial sinking and were rescued shortly after the accident.
With the identity of the 10-year-old boy established, the joint Search and Rescue operation now concentrates on his 9-year-old brother, also referred to as M., who remains missing. The vast search across the islands and straits of Komodo National Park has narrowed to a mission for one remaining child at the center of the effort.
Forensic confirmation through teeth underscores a painful transition from the chaos of disaster to the careful procedures of closure. In tragedies at sea, where the elements often erase conventional clues, certainty may arrive through a personal signature that endured the ocean. The case is a reminder that even amid the vastness of the water, a family’s search for answers can find its resolution in the smallest and most indelible of marks.
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