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The body of 17-year-old school­boy Gabriel Nel­son was found in the wa­ters off Ma­yaro on Tues­day af­ter­noon, bring­ing an end to an in­tense search in­volv­ing po­lice, res­cue teams, vil­lagers and fish­er­folk.

Nel­son’s body was spot­ted short­ly af­ter 2 pm by a vil­lager aboard a fish­ing ves­sel and lat­er re­cov­ered. The Form Five stu­dent of St Stephen’s Col­lege had been re­port­ed miss­ing af­ter be­ing pulled un­der by a rip cur­rent while bathing at Grand La­goon, Ma­yaro, on Sun­day.

Rel­a­tives said that around 4 pm, Gabriel, his 13-year-old broth­er and their 20-year-old cousin, Nicholas Sinanan, en­coun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties while swim­ming about 50 feet from shore. The two oth­er boys man­aged to reach safe­ty, but Gabriel was dragged un­der­wa­ter.