Police has appealed to fishing communities along the River Nile to offer any piece of information that could lead to the where about or what could have happened to a Dutch citizen who went missing from Murchison Falls National Park more than a week ago.
Sofia Isabella Federika, a medical student who was a volunteer at Rubaga Hospital in Kampala went missing at Para, inside Murchison Park in Nwoya district in northern Uganda.
Jimmy Patrick Okema, the Aswa Region Police Spokesperson said on Monday that any person who has any clue on the where about of Federika to contact the search team or the police.
Okema said even belongings of the missing Dutch national can offer vital clues on what could have happened to her.
The police spokesman says that even if hope of ever finding her alive is fading, the missing Dutch national cannot be declared dead yet.
The police publicist says it is only after three years after a person has been missing that he/she can be presumed dead.
On the second days of her disappearance, a search team stumbled on an empty mineral water bottle and a piece of cloth, on the banks of the River Nile, suspected to have belonged to Federika.
Federika is reported to have told her friends she was going for a short call, a distance away from the Students Education Centre in Paraa, Nwoya District, but didn’t return.
River Nile is infested with crocodiles and hippopotamuses that are known to attack human beings. It is however unclear at this stage as to what could have happened to her.
The Netherlands Embassy in Uganda has delivered a drone (mini- helicopter) to boost the search. The drone is being operated by a group of experts from the Netherlands.
For more than a week now, the tourism police, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) officers with the support of sniffer dogs and an arm chopper has been unsuccessful in its search.
By James Owich
