For three weeks, 35 members of the City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services navigated their way through sewer pipelines in their bid to retrieve the body of six-year-old Khayalethu Magadla. Daily Maverick spoke to some of the searchers.

'Khayalethu Magadla's call was a first of its kind for us and maybe that's why it took us so many days to retrieve his body," said Robert Mulaudzi, the spokesperson for the City of Johannesburg Emergency Management Services (EMS).

He was reliving the efforts to locate Khayalethu (6) who fell into a manhole more than three weeks ago while playing with friends in Soweto. His body was found in Eldorado Park on Saturday

"Mostly, we attend river searches. In the previous incidents where a child fell in a manhole, it was not a direct sewer and it took us a day or two to retrieve the bodies, after searching seven manholes and at most eight manholes. In Khayalethu's case, it was 30 manholes in 20 days," said Mulaudzi.

Read in Daily Maverick: Body of Khayalethu Magadla found three weeks after six-year-old becomes latest casualty of country's uncovered manholes

Mulaudzi said that in this case, they relied on high-level technology, heavy-duty machinery, water...