Five girls drown in pond in southeastern Turkey

Five girls between the ages of 11 and 14 drowned in a pond which is used for irrigation in the southeastern province of Batman on July 30.

The five reportedly entered the pond to cool down during the oppressive summer heat, but none of them knew how to swim.

The bodies of the all the girls, who were all relatives, were sent to Batman’s Kozluk district for funerals following autopsies.

Kübra Yaman, 13, and her sister, Sevda Yaman, 11, Cansel Yaman, 14, and her sister Rozin Yaman, 13, and their cousin Halime Yaman, 13, were found under the water by divers inside the pond in Kozluk’s Yankılı village.

A day of mourning was announced in the district, while all celebrations, including weddings, were cancelled after the incident.

Vahdettin Yaman, the 41-year-old father of Cansel and Rozin Yaman, said his daughters did not know how to swim.

“The depth of the pond is five meters. If one of them knew how to swim maybe they would be here with us. We don’t know when they entered the pond. We started to search for them in the evening. When I saw the shoes of my two daughters near the pond, I was devastated,” Yaman told Doğan News Agency.

Batman Disaster Department head Fevzi Bakır said the pond varied in depth between five and 12 meters, adding that their team took around 30 minutes to remove the bodies.