The sea keeps its own quiet memory. Waves rise and fall with the patience of time itself, touching rocks that have watched generations come and go. Along the wild edges of New Zealand’s Northland coast, fishermen often stand where land gives way to restless water, casting lines into the shifting blue. The ocean can appear generous in these moments—open, wide, almost companionable.
Yet the same sea carries stories that move slowly toward shore.
Nearly two years ago, on the rugged rocks at a place known as The Gap near Taiharuru, two men stood against that restless horizon. The spot is well known among local anglers: beautiful in calm weather, but exposed to powerful swells rolling in from the Pacific. On 1 May 2024, Ferzil Babu and Sarath Kumar had gone there to fish. When the evening passed and the pair did not return home, concern began to ripple outward across the Northland community.
Search crews arrived the next day, tracing the shoreline and scanning the water from the air. Volunteers, rescue teams, and coastguard vessels combed the surrounding sea. Within days, Kumar’s body was recovered from the water by a police dive squad. Babu, however, remained missing, and the ocean kept its silence.
Time moved on. The waves continued their long rhythm along the coast, and the search gradually gave way to uncertainty—one of the quiet burdens carried by families when a loved one disappears into the sea.
Months later, on December 20, 2025, a Department of Conservation staff member working on Coppermine Island—also known as Mauipane—made a discovery. Human remains were found on the remote island, part of the protected Hen and Chicken Islands group lying east of Bream Bay. Police were notified, and the remains were recovered for examination.
What followed was a careful process carried out far from the shoreline. Pathologists, anthropologists, and scientists from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research examined the remains, working to determine who the person might have been.
Now, that quiet question has been answered.
Authorities have confirmed that the remains found on Coppermine Island belong to Ferzil Babu, the fisherman who disappeared during that May 2024 trip. Police have informed his family and extended condolences following the identification.
Babu, 34, had been living in New Zealand only a short time. Both he and Kumar were members of the Whangārei Malayalee community and had young families. Their disappearance had deeply affected the community, which had supported relatives and helped search efforts in the months after the incident.
Coppermine Island lies about 25 to 40 kilometers off the Northland coast and is rarely visited, protected as a nature reserve where access is tightly controlled. The rugged islands and shifting currents of the surrounding sea mean that objects—and sometimes stories—may travel long distances before reaching land again.
For Babu’s family, the confirmation arrives after a long period of uncertainty, bringing a difficult chapter toward its final understanding.
Police confirmed that human remains discovered on Coppermine Island in December 2025 have been formally identified as those of missing fisherman Ferzil Babu, who disappeared while rock fishing near Taiharuru, Northland, on May 1, 2024.
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