Toddler drowns in Cape Town drain

Words: Alice Scott/ Laney Van Wyk / GroundUp

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A one-year-old child drowned on Saturday after falling into an open municipal drain in Samora Machel in Cape Town.

City of Cape Town Mayco member for Water and Sanitation, Zahid Badroodien, confirmed the child’s death and extended condolences to the family. Badroodien declined to answer questions about the contractor or the work being done.

He said police were investigating and it would be ‘premature’ to comment further. The City was cooperating fully with the authorities.

The Movement for Collective Action and Racial Equity (Movement for CARE) said the construction company contracted by the City had left the drain on Hintsaka Pahlo Street exposed.

Nkosikhona Swartbooi, Movement for CARE coordinator, said on Saturday the toddler, who lived near the drain, had taken a few steps out of his home and fallen in.

The drain had been left open since August, Swartbooi said, when construction began on a sewerage project. He said it should have been monitored at all times.

‘That baby boy was just walking around and playing, not knowing that there’s this hazardous place that’s left open, where safety precautions should have been implemented,’ Swartbooi said.

When GroundUp visited on Monday, the drain had been cordoned off and there was construction equipment and six construction workers filling the hole.

Ward 33 councillor Lungisa Somdaka confirmed that a contractor, hired to fix a sewer line after a manhole collapsed, had been working on the street. He said he had called the company to ask why the site had not been secured. Somdaka said he had forgotten the name of the company.

Swartbooi said the child’s death highlighted the lack of safe play areas. His own two-year-old nephew Imthande drowned in an uncovered manhole in Khayelitsha in 2021 and Swartbooi said Movement for CARE knew of several other children who had died in similar circumstances.

Ensuring children have a place to play is critical for their development, Ntuthuzelo Vika, Movement for CARE’s head of operations, said. ‘For children to grow, they need to play,’

Movement for CARE is calling on the City to adopt a comprehensive Children’s Right to Play Policy and fund a plan to act on that policy. The organisation also wants the City to secure other dangerous sites and audit unsafe public spaces.

‘Children cannot keep on paying with their lives,’ Swartbooi said.

GroundUp asked SA Police Service for comment, which will be added when it is received.

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Picture: Alice Scott / GroundUp

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