Last night the police in Walvis Bay were still searching desperately for a young boy whom a friend claimed fell down the manhole of a main sewerage line in the industrial area yesterday.

The particular sewerage line services the fish factories, as well as other industrial businesses and it is suspected the boy fell down the manhole while he and a friend were out playing. On Wednesday local residents were still hopeful that the missing boy would arrive home and that the whole incident was just a misunderstanding.

A large number of bystanders gathered at the manhole as the municipality of Walvis Bay used a sewerage pump truck to lower the sewerage-water level in the manhole. Their search yielded no result and the police went further and searched a nearby waterhole that formed when seawater seeped into a hole dug by a construction company, but their efforts went unrewarded. There are a number of informal traders in the area and the boy alerted them that his friend fell down the manhole. The police turned their focus to the boy who reported the incident, but decided for the time being to abandon their search, in order to obtain the name and home address of the missing child.

Informanté continues to keep a close watch on the search for the missing boy.