LABUAN BAJO, Indonesia — In a sequence of events steeped in profound cultural solemnity and tragic resolution, the body believed to be that of missing Valencia CF coach Fernando Martín Carreras was recovered from the waters off Padar Island on Sunday morning. The discovery came shortly after local Suku Bajo community leaders performed ancient maritime rituals, appealing to the sea to release the missing.
Dramatic video from the scene captures the precise and respectful operation as search and rescue personnel gently retrieved the body from the surface of the Flores Sea. The footage shows the careful transfer onto a rescue vessel, a sobering moment that concluded a ten-day multinational search involving sonar, drones, and over 150 personnel.
The morning had begun not with technology, but with tradition. As dawn broke over the Komodo archipelago, elders and spiritual leaders from the indigenous Suku Bajo community—renowned for their deep symbiotic relationship with the sea—conducted a ritual adat (customary ceremony) along the shores near the search zone. In a moving appeal spoken in their own language, they communed with the ocean, respectfully asking it to return the bodies of the lost family, referred to as saudara (kin), so they may find peace.
Remarkably, not long after the ceremony concluded, a call came from one of the search vessels: a body was sighted floating in the waters of the Padar Strait. For the local teams, many of whom are from seafaring communities, the timing reinforced a deep-seated belief in the power of ritual and respect for the marine realm.
The recovered body was transported to the Labuan Bajo Regional General Hospital for formal identification. While a family member at the SAR command post confirmed the discovery by stating, “Father is found,” official authorities await forensic results.
This poignant discovery, emerging at the intersection of modern search logistics and ancient maritime tradition, brings a harrowing chapter to a partial close. It answers one heartbreaking question in the tragedy of the sunken KM Putri Sakinah, yet two others remain: the coach’s young sons are still missing, their fate held by the same powerful currents that finally yielded their father. The search for them continues under a pall of grief, now intertwined with a moment of cultural reverence that will long be remembered by those who witnessed it.
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