11 children die after falling into wells in Afghanistan in six months

KABUL (Pajhwok): Pajhwok Afghan News findings show at least 11 children died after falling into wells in the last six months in the country.

Most of these incidents happened in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, with some local residents blaming the incidents on carelessness. They say the government should issue a strict order for covering the top of wells in a standard way and punish the violators.

Incident of Zabul boy

On February 17, a six-year-old boy Haider fell into a 30-metre deep well in Zabul province. Rescuers were unable to salvage the boy after three days of continued efforts.

Several officials including Minister of Defence Mullah Yaqub reached the area along with a rescue team but after three days, the child lost his life.

Last year, Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani directed provincial officials to ensure that all deep-wells were covered to avoid unpleasant incidents in future.

Interior Minister Haqqani informed governors and district officials in a written message to instruct the owners of deep-wells nationwide to cover their wells in order to avoid tragic incidents in future.

He also directed imams of mosques to convey to the people the importance of the matter in order to avoid recurrence of similar incidents in future.

Most incidents happened in Helmand, Kandahar

According to Pajhwok reports, during the past six months, nine children fell into wells in Greshk, Nawzad, Nad Ali, Garamsir, and Musa Qala districts of Helmand and six of them died and three others were rescued.

Also four such incidents occurred in Khakrez, Shah Walikot and Spin Boldak districts of Kandahar, out of which a pregnant woman and two children died and one child was rescued.

Two children fell into wells in Herat and Ghazni provinces. The child in Herat was rescued but the Ghazni one lost his life.

People’s recklessness

Hafizullah Nusrat, a legal expert in Helmand, told Pajhwok the cases of children falling into wells in the province had increased due to carelessness.

He said people didn’t bother to cover the top of the wells which was to blame for such incidents.

Author and journalist Amanullah Pashtun also called people’s indifference a reason for the increase in the number of children falling into wells and said the government must warn all the people to cover their wells’ top in standard manner and if anyone violates, they should be punished.

According to Pashtun, people should not be careless in this regard and everyone should cover their deep wells so that human beings and animals are prevented from falling into them.

Mohammad Din, a tribal elder from Daman district, says farmers dig deep wells, but leave their tops bare, that's why children and animals fall into the wells and die.

He added: “Children or other people often fall into wells due to people’s carelessness, people dp not cover the top of wells. Last week two goats fell into a well.”

Sayed Wali, a farmer in the 15^th police district of Kandahar City, said: “In the past, children also fell into wells, but such incidents were not reported in the media, so people did not know about it.”

sa/ma