‘Heartbreaking’ to watch tragedy unfold

An RNLI officer described the heartbreaking and traumatic scenes of witnessing families that observe helpless in the middle of the efforts to locate two missing teenagers in the water of Donegal County.

Emmanuel Familiala, 16, originally from Nigeria, and Matt Sibanda, 18, from Zimbabwe died after getting into difficulties near Buncrana on Saturday.

Joe Joyce, RNLI’s press officer for Lough Swilly lifeboat, said it was a very difficult incident to attend.

Hundreds of people attended a special service at St Mary’s ORATORY in Buncrana on Sunday in their memory.

The tragedy took place on Saturday afternoon after the Ireland Coast Guard received a report from several people in water difficulty.

It is understood that a group had been playing football on the beach in Ned’s Point, on the outskirts of Buncrana, and some had gone to the water to recover a ball.

Later that night, Matt Sibanda’s body was recovered from water.

Emmanuel Familiala was rescued and tasks to the Hospital of the University of Letterkenny, but died in the early hours of Sunday morning.

A third teenage child managed to return to the coast.

In statements to the Good Morning Ulster program of BBC Radio Ulster on Monday, Joyce said several requests were made to Malin Head’s Coast Guard to get help, and launched two lifeboats.

“Malin Head also took out a ‘Mayday’, asking anyone in the vicinity that come and help us.”

He said that a former member of the RNLI crew, who was in the lot in his own personal boat, helped in the incident.

There was also a helicopter and drones of the Irish coast guard used in the search operation, said Joyce.

“That day there was a local yacht race that day, and they stopped and helped him with the search,” he said, there were about 60 people in the search at that stage.

“It was terrible traumatic to look at families watching over the lot and praying,” he said.

Joyce said support services have been implemented after the incident.

“The schools have opened to give advice and we are taking care of their own team, and everyone is surprised.”

“Father Bradley arrived on the scene to comfort families and directed a brief prayer service,” he said.

“There was an honorable that hung on the dock, it was a terrible scene.”

Joyce said the area is a place of popular swimming and pointed out that the waters can change dramatically and quickly.

Father Francis Bradley said he was present in Matt Sibanda’s family.

He described the experience of standing next to the child’s mother on the coast as “indescribable.”

“We simply said a prayer with Matt’s mother, about water, he simply committed to God that he was that the body would be,” he said.

“The power of a mother’s love is amazing, since I stayed there and listed her call to the name of Matt, trying everything possible to return it to life, as she once was life.”

He said the area has been shaken by tragic events in recent years.

“They were very children under international protection orders, but unfortunately no international protection order could prevent them from telling them the tragedy that happened to them,” said BBC Radio Foyle.

“It is really indescribable; it is not so much that he leaves numb, but sometimes reminds him of the impotence of our human condition.

“One thing that crosses all limits is anguish, pain and complaint.”

Evelyn McLoughlin, director of Scail Mhuire in Buncrana, where Emmanuel attended, said “there were no words” that could “completely capture the pain and song we are feeling.”

Kevin Cooley, director of Crana College, where Matt attended, said that “there is a dark cloud of sadness about Buncrana.”

Councilor Fionán Bradley, who personally knew Emmanuel, said he was “a beautiful person inside and out.”

“He was universally loved by all both inside and outside school,” he said.

“From Saturday night, a true cloud of gloom and darkness, and a real bleak air has been over the entire city and the entire community”