One child drowns in an irrigation canal, one hit by an excavator

* Source and photo: Anadolu Agency (AA)

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3-year-old Yüsra Elçi fell into an irrigation canal in Turkey's southeastern province of Urfa and lost her life.

Playing in front of her house in the rural Keçeli neighborhood in Akçakale district, Elçi fell into the canal. Found in the canal thanks to the search efforts of her relatives, the deceased body of the child was sent to the Şanlıurfa Forensic Medicine Institution's morgue for the autopsy.

In Antep, another province in Turkey's southeast, a 9-year-old child was hit by an excavator in İslahiye district.

News of drowning increases after May

Speaking to bianet, Pınar Abdal from the Health and Safety Labor Watch (İSİG Assembly), which compiles data on occupational homicides in Turkey, previously underlined that they frequently come across the news of child deaths in irrigation canals after May, every year.

"And most of them are the occupational homicides of children," she noted.

Occupational homicides of children are mostly concentrated in agriculture, one of the areas with the highest child employment and poor working conditions. It is known that over half of the inhabitants of the settlements where seasonal mobile agricultural workers are accommodated are children. Among them are small children that their families have to take with them. (AÖ/SD)