A small village in southern Yemen is in mourning after seven girls from one family drowned in a pond.
A local health official said the tragedy occurred on Thursday evening when the children, aged from 8 to 12, were grazing livestock about five kilometres from their home in Al Mahfed, Abyan province.
“Seven young girls from the Ashagea family in Hasamah village drowned in a natural pond in the mountainous area,” the official told The National.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Saleh Haidara, a resident of the area. “It wasn’t a matter of a victim or two – they were seven cousins from one family. Two of them were sisters.”
Two younger girls saw their sisters drown but were unable to help. They returned to the village for assistance.
“They went grazing and one of the them slid into the pond and her sister jumped to rescue her, but they both didn’t resurface, so the other girls jumped into the pond attempting to rescue the two sisters,” said Mukhtar Saleh Omar, a neighbour of the family.
“The problem was that all the girls weren’t good at swimming,” he said.
“There was nobody there to help except two the little girls, who kept crying and shouting for help,” said the health official, who attended the girls’ funeral on Friday.
The official said an ambulance team sent to retrieve the bodies could not reach the pond because the road through mountainous terrain was too poor.
“It took more than two hours to carry out the bodies on their shoulders,” he said.
Several people have drowned in southern Yemen after torrential rain in Abyan, Shabwa, Al Mahrah and other provinces.
In Shabwa, four women and a child drowned on July 21 after rain in the western district of Bayhan, residents told The National.
Two people drowned in Al Mahrah after being swept away by flash floods following heavy rains in the province.
In May, four people died and more than 84 families were made homeless when torrential rains caused flooding in the historical city of Tarim, in Hadramawt province.
Yemen’s Civil Aviation and Meteorology Authority has issued several warnings for people to stay vigilant because heavy rainfall is expected in many parts of the country.
'The Sky is Everywhere'
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
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Infiniti QX80 specs
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Power: 450hp
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Price: From Dh450,000, Autograph model from Dh510,000
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4.
5.
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Naga
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Gulf Under 19
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Pool C - Dubai College A, Dubai Sharks, Jumeirah English Speaking School, Al Yasmina
Pool D – Dubai Exiles, Dubai Hurricanes, Al Ain Amblers, Deira International School
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Mar 10: Norwich(A)
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MATCH INFO
Karnatake Tuskers 114-1 (10 ovs)
Charles 57, Amla 47
Bangla Tigers 117-5 (8.5 ovs)
Fletcher 40, Moores 28 no, Lamichhane 2-9
Bangla Tiger win by five wickets
