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Relatives ID body found at Kaieteur Falls
– remains to be transported to city today
A Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Special Forces team has located and secured the body of Laleta Sivanand, the woman who vanished at the Kaieteur National Park (KNP) two weeks ago.
Laleta Sivanand
The body, which was first spotted by a KNP ranger late Saturday afternoon, was found in a rocky area at the base of the Falls. High water levels had previously kept the remains submerged.
Kaieteur News understands that a relative identified the remains by the victim’s clothing.
A release from the Ministry of the Presidency stated that the body will be transported by aircraft to Georgetown today for a post-mortem examination.
Meanwhile, the Park remains closed for the completion of the recovery operation and is expected to be re-opened by Wednesday September 16, 2015.
“As the recovery operation continues, the Ministry of the Presidency expresses sympathy to the family of the tourist during this difficult time. Thanks are expressed to all officials and agencies that supported the work of the GPF and the GDF during the search and now the recovery operation,” the release added.
Sivanand, a Human Resources Manager at Singers, had booked a flight to the Kaieteur Falls the day before she vanished. She was among eight people who joined the Air Services Limited flight to the Falls. She was travelling unaccompanied.
Reports are that the woman was seen crying and talking on her phone during the flight.
When the aircraft landed at the falls the woman appeared to be in a better frame of mind.
However, Sivanand was discovered missing when the tour guide was distributing chits to the passengers for snacks, at the Kaieteur airstrip before they boarded the aircraft back to Ogle. Initially, all of the trails in the Park were searched and binoculars were also used to view the area below the falls and along the sides of the gorge.
One of her colleagues on the trip said that Sivanand was with the party when it was returning along the trail from the falls.
She said that the woman lagged behind and when they urged her to walk alongside them, Sivanand said that she knew the place and that she had been there several times before.
Sivanand had reportedly spoken of being with a British team that discovered some caves in the Kaieteur Falls area a few years ago.
Rabindranauth Sivanand, her husband, had declined to say much about his missing spouse when Kaieteur News visited the family home.
He however echoed the sentiments of an elderly woman at the home that it is, “a troubling, worrisome and stressful time for the family.”
He said that he last saw his wife on Tuesday, September 1. “She left to go out but she did not say where she was going.”
He had also expressed hope that “they find her and that she is found alive.”
This is the second such tragedy at the location. In November, 2009, Aliya Bulkan, 23, plunged to her death from a cliff at the Kaieteur Falls.
GDF Special Forces ranks recovered the body more than a week later.
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