According to the country's bathing season report, covering the period between August 15, 2023 and May 15, 2024, over the course of nine months, 768 deaths were recorded from drowning in bathing areas, 105 more deaths compared to the same period last year.
The provinces of Benguela, Cuanza Sul, Cuando Cubango, Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul, Huambo and Huíla represent around 68 percent of the cases registered in that period.
Luanda recorded the highest number of drownings at sea.
The age group from zero to 9 years old leads the drowning rate, due to the lack of supervision on the part of adults, followed by teenagers and young people from 10 to 25 years old, with sea beaches, rivers, water holes and lakes as the main environments of drownings.
In the report presented this Thursday, at a press conference, the National Civil Protection and Fire Service (SNPCB) states that the statistics "do not reflect the real situation", taking into account the existence of "notified cases of disappearance without confirmation of death".
Socio-economic characteristics of the populations, weak supervision of prohibited areas due to insufficient resources, absence of specific legislation on Bathing Safety, failure to sign signage of prohibited areas for bathing and lack of barriers to control access to children are pointed out as factors of vulnerability.
To journalists, SNPCB spokesperson Wilson Baptista said that the corporation's staff lack the legitimacy to hold citizens responsible for using prohibited beaches, noting, however, that the bill on bathing safety has already been completed.
"This bathing safety bill at SNPCB level has already been completed, it has already been sent to the Ministry of the Interior for the necessary revisions and at this moment the document has already been sent to the Military House [of the President of the Republic] and is being processed", he stated.
