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DEATH BY DROWNING

Tripled in last 3 years
A leading cause of child death
Registering incidents key for policy intervention, say experts
OUR CORRESPONDENT, Patuakhali
On June 5, Mahinur, a homemaker, found his son Tamim, 10, floating in a nearby canal upon returning from a nearby meadow in Londa village of Patuakhali’s Galachipa upazila.
His father Helal Matubbor, a farmer, was still in the field when he was informed of the incident.
Tamim was rushed to the upazila health complex where the doctors declared him dead.
“I had just stepped out to feed the cows. I wish I had taken him with me...,” said Mahinur.
Another four-year-old boy drowned in the same upazila that day.
Zobayer, 4, son of Jalil Mridha of Haridebpur village, fell into a pond near his home while playing with other children. He was taken to the same hospital only to be declared dead by the doctors.
A total of six children drowned in Patuakhali that day, two more in Galachipa and one each in Kalapara and Mirzaganj upazilas.
On May 12, three children of the same family -- Sohel Fakir’s children Sharmin, 5, and Ruman, 7; and Marium, 8, daughter of Rubel Fakir -- drowned while they were bathing in a nearby pond in Kalapara’s Itbaria village.
According to the Patuakhali Civil Surgeon Office, 106 children drowned in the district in 2022. The numbers were 56 in 2021 and 29 in 2020. A total of 44 children drowned in the district between January 1 and June 7 this year.
“The rate of drowning children is slightly higher in this district as it is situated near the Bay of Bengal and is home to a lot of canals and waterbodies. The incidents mainly occur between 8:00am and 2:00pm as the kids remain unattended at home with their parents being busy with work and household chores. However, these incidents can be prevented if the children are taught swimming at an early age and fences are built around waterbodies,” said Dr SM Kabir Hasan, the district’s civil surgeon.
Noting the issue, the government has approved “Integrated Community Based Center for Child Care, Protection and Swim Safe Facilities”, a project jointly initiated by the Ministry of Women and Children Affairs and Shishu Academy, said Mir Masrur Zaman, director of Society for Media and Suitable Human-communication Techniques, an organisation committed to prevent drowning deaths through media campaigning.
“Such cases usually rise during the monsoon. Children should not be allowed to bathe in ponds or play around them without adult supervision,” he added.
According to Patuakhali Civil Surgeon Office, 106 children drowned in the district in 2022. The numbers were 56 in 2021 and 29 in 2020. A total of 44 children drowned in the district between January 1 and June 7 this year.
NILIMA JAHAN
In Bangladesh, media reports indicate a threefold increase in child deaths due to drowning, which is recognised as a leading cause of mortality among children under five in rural areas.
However, the lack of comprehensive national-level data poses a significant challenge in effectively addressing this issue.
Experts highlighted that when it comes to citing drowning-related death data, they rely solely on the 2016 Bangladesh Health and Injury Survey, which revealed a shocking statistic of 30 children under five dying from drowning every day.
Regrettably, due to a lack of awareness, preventable drowning deaths in rural areas are often categorised as natural deaths and not properly recorded in vital statistics.
Despite the presence of a vital registration system in all union parishads, deaths resulting from drowning are largely unreported, hindering the development of appropriate policy responses.
Experts emphasised that if these deaths were accurately registered, the government would gain insights into specific trends in different areas and implement effective interventions to prevent these avoidable fatalities.
Sadrul Hasan Mazumder, convener of National Alliance for Drowning Prevention, highlighted the societal factors that hinder the registration of child drowning deaths.
“After visiting many union parishads and talking to UP chairmen and secretaries, I noticed some disturbing discoveries. Parents are less motivated to report child deaths under 5 because there are no property-related concerns,” he said.
“Parents also avoid post-mortem investigations for unnatural deaths like drowning due to police involvement, which they find burdensome. Families and society often view such deaths as natural events, discouraging death registration,” he noted.
“Additionally, in cases where a child under-5 dies from drowning, there are usually no opposing parties involved (although mothers often bear the blame for negligence despite the absence of any opponents), which also contribute to the underreporting of such deaths and discourage parents from registering,” he added.
Sadrul noted that union parishads have standing committees for vaccination, child marriage prevention, and violence prevention, but not for drowning prevention or registration.
He stressed that policymakers and parents have failed to recognise and adequately address drowning tragedies.
Dr Aminur Rahman, deputy executive director of the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research Bangladesh and director of CIPRB’s International Drowning Research-Bangladesh, expressed a similar concern.
He stressed that a yearly thorough record of deaths in a specific location would help determine whether drowning deaths are rising or falling following an intervention.
He also underlined the significance of having a regular reporting system to accurately track the trend, as annual surveys after an intervention are neither practicable nor cost-effective.
SoMaSHTe, an agency that investigates drowning deaths from national and local media reports, also finds it difficult to get the full story from media reporting.
This is due to the fact that the media may be unaware of what is occurring in remote areas, where death registration plays a crucial role in obtaining an accurate picture of child drowning fatalities.
Referring to the SDGs aimed at reducing child mortality, a spokesperson for SoMaSHTe stated, “If ward members are made aware, every drowning fatality can be registered and stored in the database. If each union receives instructions from the Ministry of Local Government, the UPs will accord them due consideration.”
According to SoMaSHTe data from January 2020 to May 2023, approximately 3,533 people died due to drowning in Bangladesh. Of these, 3,099 (87.71 percent) were children who drowned in nearby waterbodies while being unattended.