A pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Gabriel Diya, and his two children have drowned in a hotel swimming pool on the Costa del Sol, Spain on Christmas Eve.
Police identified the bodies on Thursday after postmortem examinations carried out on Christmas Day confirmed death by drowning.
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Diya, 52, pastored Open Heavens parish in Charlton, London.
The preacher including his son Praise-Emmanuel Diya, 16, and daughter Comfort Diya, nine, died in the tragedy.
Police in Spain said Comfort got into difficulty while playing in one of the 21 swimming pools at the Club La Costa World resort.
Her father and older brother jumped in to try to save her but also struggled in the water. Despite poolside attempts to resuscitate them, all three died at the scene.
Diya and Comfort were British citizens while Praise-Emmanuel was an American citizen.
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Diya’s wife, Olubunmi, a source told UK Mirror, prayed as CPR was performed on her husband and children.
After retrieving the girl’s swimming hat from the pool’s pump, police found nothing wrong with the pool’s filtration and pump system.
Reports say Diya’s wife, who is an assistant pastor at Open Heavens, and their third child, a girl, have been given psychological treatment.
The resort management, which has opened its own internal investigation into the incident, denied any negligence and insisted there was “no problem” with the pool which was “totally fit for swimming”.
The pool has since reopened to the public.
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RCCG’s UK central office, in a Facebook post, described the losses as a “tragic accident”.
It said: “At this very difficult time, our prayers are with Pastor Gabriel Diya’s family, the parishes that were under his supervision, friends, associates, members of RCCG and the general public.”
