The North West police have opened inquest dockets following three cases of drowning, which happened in the past two days due to heavy rainfall.
Two cases have been reported in Mahikeng, where a nine year old boy drowned in a water-filled uncovered hole on Monday and a 25-year-old man drowned at Disaneng dam on Tuesday.
Two women from Kraaipan village drowned when trying to cross a river on Tuesday afternoon.
On Tuesday two cousins, Palesa Tsotetsi and Refilwe Ndlovu from the rural village of Kraaipan drowned when they were trying to cross a river.
Community members came to their rescue and took them to a local clinic where they were certified dead.
This has left the family reeling in shock and devastated. Their sister, Pontsho Tsotetsi, who was also with them when the incident took place explains what transpired.
“We were on the other side of the valley before a heavy rainfall. After it stopped we came home. When we were about to cross, I had put my feet to check how deep was the water and they pulled me. After my younger sister put her feet, that is when the heavy flowing water dragged her. Then my sisters jumped in to pull her out. Unfortunately they were both dragged by that water,” says Tsotetsi.
Another sad incident on New Year’s Day a nine-year-old boy was found drowned the previous evening falling into a storm water ditch near his house in Lonely Park location.
Police divers have also retrieved the body of a man who had drowned at the Disaneng Dam outside Mahikeng on New Year’s Day.
It is believed that he spend the day relaxing with friends when he got into trouble. Several dams and quarries are now full to capacity due to the heavy rainfall encountered in the past few days.
Mahikeng and nearby villages experienced at over 10 millilitres of rainfall.
Police spokesperson in the Mahikeng cluster, Lesedi Dingoko, has called on communities to refrain from swimming in dangerous areas like dams and quarries.
“We would like to sensitise our communities at large that during this rainy season this is where quarries and dams filled up and more often the young boy and girls would go and swim and that is where they would encounter danger. Now we sensitise our community to reprimand those young boys and girls and perhaps to go as far as from refraining from swimming,” says Dingoko.
Investigations on four cases of drowning are currently underway.
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