Every year around 18,000 Bangladeshi children under the age of 17 die from drowning in ponds, rivers and other bodies of water that make up this low-lying country. This translates to a child dying every half an hour – 46 every day – thought to be one of the highest rates of child drowning anywhere in the world.
The story of 11-year-old Enamul, from a small village in the district of Narsingdi in central Bangladesh, is all too familiar. "He went to play with his friends," his mother Hosna said. "They made a raft out of banana tree leaves and took it out on the pond behind our houses." The young boy then reached in the water to pick up the raft but fell in. He could not swim, and drowned.
"All the pain I felt when I was in labour with him is nothing to the pain I feel now. When I think of him, my heart breaks," Hosna says.
Tragedy also befell Sajeda. She left her two sons, three-year-old Hassan and Hossain, 10, to play around the house while she went to work. But again, the local pond proved a tempting draw for the youngsters, who could not swim. When Sajeda returned from work, she couldn't find her sons. After a search was mounted, the two boys were discovered face down in the pond.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...s-are-a-matter-of-life-and-death-7582490.html