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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A nine-year-old girl is missing after being overcome by strong currents in the Bekhal river close to its resort on Sunday, local officials said, with emergency services deployed in search of him.
Yet to have been found, the girl, identified as Raqiya Hussein Ali, a Shabak from Bartella, is believed to have drowned.
"The [girl] fell into the water one kilometer from Bekhal’s waterfall where it becomes a river, and near a hydro-power project," Chia Mohammed, head of the Ruwanduz Tourism Department, told Rudaw.
Mohammed said that while the Bekhal resort itself abides by rules and regulations, there are "no safety measures at the spot where the child fell. We have at numerous times called on local officials to prohibit visitor access to that location."
He also placed partial blame on the visitors themselves, who “do not abide by our rules and regulations."
Finding the girl could prove “very difficult” given the location’s treacherous currents and terrain, said Karwan Mirawdali, a Civil Defense Unit official in Soran province.
Hot weather makes the Region’s lakes and rivers a popular destination for locals and visitors to cool off; Bekhal, situated 65 kilometers northeast of Erbil, is one such destination. It is especially popular in the spring and early summer, when melting winter snow brings crisp clean water down from the mountains.
But poor enforcement of safety regulations leads to dozens of drownings every year. Four people are known to have drowned in the Kurdistan Region’s lakes and rivers this month alone.
A 4-year-old boy from Baghdad drowned at Bekhal on June 5 during the Eid holidays. His body has not been recovered.
In Zakho, Duhok province, the search for two missing family members is continuing after three other members of the same family drowned while swimming in the Little Khabour River on Friday.
After the capsize of a Mosul ferry killed 100 people on March 21, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced stricter regulations for waterfront attractions, insisting patrons and passengers wear life jackets.
“If any tourist gets on a watercraft without wearing a life jacket, the owner of the watercraft will be punished,” Mawlawi Jabbar, head of the KRG’s tourism directorate, told Rudaw at the time.
CORRECTION: It was a 9-year-old girl missing, not a boy as previously reported. Update: 09:04 a.m. on June 1, 2019
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