Body of missing swimmer found

[caption id="attachment_221260" align="aligncenter" width="599"] Rescue services vehicles at Hobie Beach after swimmer Mayenziwe Moyo went missing[/caption]

Police spokeswoman Colonel Priscilla Naidu has confirmed that the body of missing swimmer, Mayenziwe Moyo, has been found near Shark Rock Pier in the early hours of Friday morning.

Police and rescue workers spent hours yesterday searching for the body of Moyo, 22, who went missing shortly after 5pm on Wednesday.

He was found around 3:40am.

Moyo , who is a casual worker for Johannesburg based Xpo Active, was in Port Elizabeth to erect and take down exhibition stands at a conference under way in the Boardwalk.

The search was called off at about 7pm on Wednesday due to poor light.

National Sea Rescue Institute station commander Ian Gray said the organisation had joined the search after reports of two men in trouble in the surf at the popular swimming beach.

“It was reported that two adult men had entered the water and after appearing to be separated from each other by currents, one man was swept towards the pier before disappearing beneath the surf. The second man was able to get to shore,” he said.

Gray said bystanders had attempted to rescue the man but were unsuccessful.

As part of the search, rescue swimmers and rescue divers were deployed, as well as an NSRI craft and a municipal jetski.

Naidu said divers and their search and recovery teams had been deployed.

“Water and land searches are still under way and will continue until the body is found,” she said.

This drowning comes just two months after Vacu Bayanda, 25, drowned while swimming with a group of friends at the same beach.

Retired municipal lifeguard Peter Brits, who witnessed the group getting into difficulty, rescued both Mzuvele Mqikwa, 23, and Tyhoba Sihle, 26, but could not save Bayanda.

The men were part of a group of first-year mechanical engineering students from the Ingwe TVET College.