Muscat: The Omani police say the bodies of two Emirati brothers who went missing at sea last year would likely never be found.
They say that the bodies were dragged far away from where the incident took place due to powerful waves triggered by the monsoon.
Boats and helicopters were deployed to find the missing boys and the rescue mission lasted for over two weeks.
The incident occurred on July 23, 2015, when four Emiratis went swimming despite repeated warnings by the authorities to avoid the rough sea in the Dimr area of Mirbat province in Dhofar governorate.
The missing brothers were identified as 21-year-old Abdullah Al Dahri and 19-year-old Mansour Al Dahri.
Gulf News reported last year that Abdullah refused to let go of his little brother, who was not a good swimmer, after he was struggling to keep his head above the water.
According to Mohammad Al Daheri, a cousin of the brothers who was with them, Abdullah died heroically trying to rescue his brother.
At the time, Mohammad sobbed as he told Gulf News, how he saw one of his cousins “drown in front of my eyes”, adding that he narrowly escaped that fate himself.
“I tried to stop Abdullah and Mansour but they didn’t listen to me,” he said.
He then saw the waves sweep his cousins further out to sea.
Since the tragedy, the Public Authority for Civil Defence and Ambulance (PACDA) has deployed fully-equipped rescue teams at the main beaches of Dhofar governorate in order to quickly respond to emergencies.
Four Emiratis drowned at Magseal beach in Salalah between 2012 and 2014.
Salalah, in the southern part of Oman, hosts thousands of visitors from inside and outside Oman. Tourists like Salalah as it has cooler temperatures during the summer than the rest of the Gulf and has lush green landscapes.
