KATIMA MULILO – An 11-year-old boy went missing in the Zambezi River on Wednesday while he was swimming with his friends in the river on the eastern side of Protea Hotel.
The chief control warden in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism, Morgan Saisai, confirmed the incident to New Era. “We have not found the body, we are still searching,” he said.
According to Saisai ,it is not clear whether the child drowned or was caught by a crocodile.
He however expressed concern that many children are being left to go and swim in the crocodile-infested river by their parents.
“The children are left to go and play in water where we know for sure that they are creatures which cause harm, or the water itself. The children who go there are never trained swimmers, they just go there to practise,” said Saisai.
Saisai cautioned that those unfortunate incidences are happening because people are abusing the water resource in the Zambezi Region, in reference to people who have turned the river into a free car wash, polluting it in the process. “Our towns are faced with the challenge of water. If our water – the Zambezi which has fresh water – is dirtied, is abused, how can it be sustained? Because to purify that water is very, very costly,” said Saisai.