Teenage Baluchi girls drowned in a ditch while attempting to get water

October 12, 2019- Two teenage Baluchi girls, Sara and Basmeh Kalamati, 14 and 16, were drowned in a water ditch or Hootag.

The news was announced by Jamshid Sarani, governor of Dashtyari County of Chabahar, in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan. The two teenage Baluchi girls had gone to the Hootag to do their dishes and laundry when they fell into the ditch and drowned.

“The water for 100% of the villages in this county is provided by tankers that bring 15 liters of water for each person,” Sarani added.

The government has left the water supply projects for 210 villages in this region incomplete and done nothing to complete any of them.

Anvar Badpa, director of the Education Department of Dashtyari, also stated: “The drowned were two students who had gone to the Hootag outside of school hours to help their families; unfortunately, they fell into the Hootag and lost their lives.” (The state-run Khabar Fori, October 10, 2019)

“Many students have so far lost their lives while getting water from the Hootag,” he added.

Hootag is a ditch used to collect rainwater for the daily use of humans and animals due to a lack of water supply systems in these regions. Women usually go to Hootags to do the dishes and wash their family’s clothes.

Last year, it was reported that three girls and a woman drowned in a waterhole in the village of Zirdan, central Nik Shahr, located in the south of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran. This was announced on August 28, 2018, by the Director of Accidents and Medical Emergencies Center in Iranshahr.

The four victims included three girls, 8, 11 and 14, and a 25-year-old woman all of whom had gone to bring water. The 8-year-old girl slipped as she was trying to drink water. The three others jumped in, one after the other, to save the little girl, but drowned in the mud pits of the waterhole.

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