3 minors drown in Netrokona

Three minors drowned in a small pond near their house in Uttar Para village of Kendua upazila in Netrokona on Friday afternoon, reports UNB.

The deceased are Neon, 4, son of a certain Milon Mia, Halima Akter, 3, daughter of Dulal Mia, and Fahima Akter, 5, daughter of Rustam Ali of the village.

Coming to know of the matter, family members of Neon, Halima and Fahima recovered their bodies and rushed to Tarail upazila health complex of Kishoreganj, but the physician declared the three children dead.

The three drowned in a pond near their homes while they were playing on its bank, said Kendua police station officer-in-charge Imarat Hossain Gazi.

The facts indicate it is yet another instance of Bangladesh’s ‘silent killer’ of children, striking to take more young lives.

A 2017 study published in esteemed medical journal The Lancet said drowning accounts for 43 per cent of all deaths in the 1-4 age-group in Bangladesh.

UNICEF quotes a survey by the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research, Bangladesh (CIPRB) that says over 18,000 Bangladeshis aged 1-18 die of drowning each year - more than 50 each day.

Most of the deaths occur among unsupervised children between one and five years old in ponds that are very close to their homes.

Seventy-five per cent of drowning were found to happen within 65 feet of home. Sixty per cent of the victims drown between 9:00am and 1:00pm, when older siblings are at school and mothers are preparing food, gathering wood and water, or tending to crops.