30 children drown every day in Bangladesh: Study

Thirty children drown every day or 12,000 children drown annually in Bangladesh, says a new study.

Nearly 40 percent of drowning deaths occurs among children aged less than 15 years and among those aged below five years are at greatest risk, according to the study released in Dhaka on Wednesday. 

Bloomberg Philanthropies, Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit, the Centre for Injury Prevention and Research or CIPRB, and the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh or icddr,b jointly carried out the study between 2016 and 2018.

About 75 percent of the children drowned within 20 metres of their houses and the deaths occur between 10am and 1pm when women in rural areas usually remain busy with the household chores. Their children went to the ponds or water bodies by the side of the houses, the study reveals. 

“The biggest reason for this is the family's unawareness,” said Kelly Larson, a director at Bloomberg Philanthropies while releasing the report at a news conference.

In the last two years, about 71,000 children aged between one and four years in seven Upazilas were surveyed. The study was carried out on children drowned since 2012.

Globally, drowning claims the lives of at least 3,22,000 people each year, with more than 90 percent of these deaths occurring in low-and middle-income countries, said the study.