Aceh surfers: Please keep looking for my son Fifan Satrio, mother pleads

Every day and night since Fifan Satrio was lost in a storm with four Australian surfers off the west coast of Aceh, his mother, Erlisda, has prayed for her son to be found.

Helmsman Mohammad Iqbal is recovering from his injuries. Picture: Amanda Hodge

“His name is Fifan. He is my son and I want him in my arms.”

Every day and night since Fifan Satrio was lost in a storm with four Australian surfers off the west coast of Aceh, his mother, Erlisda, has prayed for her son to be found.

On Thursday, when the ­Haloban village chief and local policeman arrived at Erlisda’s house on the Banyak Islands after a flag raising to mark Indonesia’s Independence Day, she finally lost her composure.

“Please look for my son. Keep looking for him and put him in my arms,” she wept.

“You should all be out there looking. Everyone else is found. The boat is found.”

Fifan’s father, Muhammad Musa, has not given up the search for his eldest son. “He doesn’t want to return until he finds him,” says Maulidin, a local policeman.

It should have been Musa, a longboat captain with decades of experience, driving the wooden boat that Sunday night when an unexpected storm hit and the boat foundered with four Australians and three Indonesians on board.

But the father of five wasn’t feeling well so instead Fifan went and a younger man from the same village, Mohammad Iqbal, took Musa’s place at the helm.

Steph Weisse, Elliot Foote, Jordan Short and William Teagle were all found on Tuesday along with Iqbal, 27, and Junardi Akhmad, the manager of the remote Pinang Island resort where the four friends had been headed in a two-boat convoy for a 30th birthday surf trip.

The last Iqbal saw of Fifan was Monday afternoon when the young man with the infectious smile and wild mop of hair was clinging to a surfboard with his life jacket undone.

The Australians, as stronger surfers, had peeled off by then from the three Indonesians in the hope of reaching help first.

“The foreigners paddled very quickly but we couldn’t keep up and we had to look after Fifan,” Iqbal told The Australian on Thursday as he lay on a mattress in the front room of his house, hooked up to an IV and covered in raw welts.

An Indonesian police officer guards the boat that flipped while carrying the four Australians. Picture: Amanda Hodge

“I tried to give Fifan a lot of encouragement. I reminded him to tie his surfboard to his body so whatever happened – if he felt dizzy or passed out – he would not sink to the sea. “I told him if he didn’t do that and he passed out, he might not be found.”

All four Australians who survived the sinking have opted to continue their holiday with eight other friends from NSW and in a series of videos posted since their rescue have spoken of their pride in having banded together and worked as a team to stay alive.

“[I] couldn’t be happier having these three with me,” Foote says in one of the videos in which the four sit side by side on a bench at the Pinang Island resort retelling their ordeal against an idyllic backdrop of palm trees and blue skies.

“They’re all so strong and every single moment they just knew what to do and we just took charge and followed each other and there [were] no arguments ever, we were just strong as a unit.”

The four have spoken animatedly of having sprung into action as their boat filled with water, grabbing water, torches and surfboard bags that they used as flotation devices. They have also expressed their concern for Fifan and their hope that he will be found.

Fifan Satrio is still missing.

“He’s still out there and, you know, it’s hard to think about and we just hope the best for him and his family and friends in his ­village,” said Foote in one of the videos.

A GoFundMe page set up by the families of the four rescued Australians, to support the family of Fifan Satrio and the Haloban village that pulled together to help find the missing tourists, has collected $22,000, thanks in part to a generous donation from Elliot Foote’s father, Peter Foote.

Meanwhile, the search continues for Fifan.

The boat was recovered on Wednesday, having drifted many kilometres south to the edge of the Banyak island chain. Fifan’s phone was still inside it.

On Thursday, the vessel was sitting in Haloban’s small harbour, remarkably intact but for some shattered windows and smashed canopy.

Search and rescue authorities have said they will continue looking until Sunday evening for Fifan before calling the operation off.

Additional reporting: Dian Septiari