Child drowns in Sirwan River in latest fatal incident across region

KHANAQIN — A child drowned while swimming in the Sirwan River in Khanaqin on Monday, marking the latest in a series of water-related deaths across Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, local sources told 964media.

Ali Salah, an eyewitness, said the child was pulled under while swimming. Members of Peshmerga Brigade 3 were in the vicinity and helped coordinate efforts with a diving team to retrieve the body.

Police spokesperson for Garmiyan, Ali Jamal Qadouri, identified the victim as Mukhalid Mahmoud, born in 2011. “He drowned this morning while swimming in the river,” Qadouri said.

Authorities transported the body to Shahid Hazhar Hospital in Kalar. After a medical examination, it will be returned to the family and transferred back to Khanaqin.

The incident is part of a troubling pattern of seasonal drownings in local rivers and ponds. On Friday, Zakho Civil Defense reported that a five-year-old girl drowned in the Khabur River near the Govg area of Batifa, marking the fourth such fatality in the river this year.

Earlier, on July 13, a 9-year-old boy drowned after falling into an agricultural irrigation pond in Qirnaqa village, in Sulaymaniyah’s Pshdar district.