Another family is in mourning after their child passed away mysteriously within the school premises, this time in a swimming pool.

Iilyaas Abdikarim Ali Mohamud, a Grade 2 pupil from Visa Oshwal Primary School, was found dead in a swimming pool on Wednesday.

His family, who reside in Eastleigh Nairobi County, stated that their 11-year-old child went missing on Tuesday, February 20.

The late Mohamud’s father reportedly learnt of his son’s disappearance on Tuesday at around 4pm when he went to pick him up from the school located in Parklands.

Apparently, the class teacher said the boy had walked out of class and failed to return almost an hour later.

This prompted a search within the school premises but the pupil was nowhere to be found.

“I enquired from every class about my son but he was nowhere to be found. I even asked the swimming coach about the whereabouts of my child and he told me that Grade 2 did not have a swimming class that day,” he narrated.

Panicked, the family filed a report at Parklands Police Station.

“We have been looking for the child and we did not find him so we reported the matter at parklands Police Station. At around 11pm we received news that he had been found in the swimming pool,” Omar Hussein, a family friend narrated.

Mohamud was found lifeless almost 10 hours after he went missing within the school premises, prompting numerous questions from his family.

He had reportedly just joined the school, and his parents questioned why the class teacher was not bothered by his absence more than an hour later.

“We can see there was negligence in this case because how can a child leave the class and more than one hour later the class teacher was not suspicious.

“Maybe if the teacher went to look for him immediately after noticing his absence this would not have happened,” Mohamed Adan, another family friend, was quoted as saying.

Another emerging issue is the lack of surveillance cameras within the swimming pool which would have aided the case.

“We asked the school management whether the are CCTV cameras but we were told they do not cover the entire school which is very disturbing,” Adan added.

Mohamud’s body was transferred to Chiromo Mortuary where a postmortem was conducted.

Government pathologist Dr. Peter Ndegwa stated that cause of death was drowning.

“All the features are pointing to a case of drowning and we have looked for other injuries, there are no further injuries apart from the features of drowning…so the cause of death is drowning. I would maybe tell the DCI to look for circumstantial evidence to know the manner of death,” he added.

Police and officers from the Ministry of Education have launched investigations into the case and on Wednesday visited the school.

Danstan Omari, the family’s legal representative, described the matter as a clear case of negligence and vowed to seek justice for the bereaved.

“We shall be moving further to look at other legal avenues both criminal and civil to redress the family that has lost the young future leader,” he added.

The late Mohamud will be laid to rest today (Thursday) at the Lang’ata cemetery.