Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2014-01-28

Moulana Aslam Sheik and his 13 year old son Ahmed from Ladysmith have been safely rescued this afternoon by park rangers after they tragically got lost on the Drakensburg Mountain in KwaZulu-Natal.  

An emotional and traumatized Muhammed Omarjee, brother in law of Moulana Aslam told Radio Islam, Moulana Aslam embarked on a hiking trip with a few students from the Islamic Educational Centre of Ladysmith on Sunday the 26th January.

“It was an unofficial trip. Moulana normally takes students on hiking trips and outings," said Omarjee.

In the course of looking for the Royal National Park on the Drakensburg Mountain and seeking an alternate route, Moulana Aslam and Ahmed got separated from the rest of the students and got lost.

The students disembarked the mountain and realised the father and son were not behind them and informed the park rangers who went up the mountain to look for Moulana Aslam and Ahmed.

Ahmed told Radio Islam he and his father climbed up the mountain and found a cave where they sought shelter after they got lost and could not find the park.

“We were there up in the cave, when the rescuers saw us. We flashed a torch and then they saw us, but they couldn’t get to us because there was a cliff in-between,” Ahmed said.

A heartfelt Ahmed added he refused to leave his father’s side until they were both rescued.

Because of the distance between the park rangers and the cave, Ahmed said the park rangers could not affect a rescue at night but returned the following morning at 8am (27th January) where the father and son were airlifted off the peak.

Thankfully Moulana Aslam and Ahmed suffered no injuries. However he did say he was extremely traumatised, exhausted and hungry after spending the night in the cave.

“We thank all the people for making dua,” a teary eyed Ahmed said after the safe return of himself and his father.

“There’s a lot of things we have learnt from this. One is we’ve learnt how valuable the Muslim Ummah is. Today we’ve also learnt how valuable Moulana is,” said Omarjee.

“If you see the care and concern that we got from the Ladysmith community and outsiders as well; the amount of people that basically gave up their day, just to be here even though we didn’t know if we were going to find Moulana or not,” added an emotional and teary eyed Omarjee.

(Twitter: @Faizie143)