KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Local Taliban authorities in Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar Province have reported that three young men drowned in separate incidents while swimming.
Quraishi Badloon, the Taliban’s head of information at the Nangarhar Information and Culture Department, said that on Sunday morning (July 12), a young man identified as Nasibullah drowned in a water canal in the Hadda Kabul area of Jalalabad city.
He added that two other young men, identified as Saifullah and Feroz, drowned the previous day while swimming in the Bagrami and Camps areas of Jalalabad.
According to Badloon, the bodies of Nasibullah and Saifullah were recovered, while Feroz’s body has not yet been found.
He said the victims were 15, 18, and 20 years old, respectively.
Several cases of drowning among young people while swimming have been reported in Nangarhar Province during the current solar year. In response to the rising number of such incidents, a group of young people in the province launched an awareness campaign with the slogan, “The heat will not kill you, but the river will,” urging people to avoid swimming in rivers and water canals where their lives could be at risk.
The latest drowning comes amid a broader pattern of water-related fatalities across Afghanistan. According to the Taliban-run National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), at least 75 people died and three others were injured in drowning incidents between March 21 and June 5, 2026. The fatalities included 41 children, seven women, and 27 men, indicating that, on average, nearly one person lost their life to drowning every day during the reporting period.
The recurring incidents have drawn attention to the lack of water safety measures across the country. Carelessness, combined with the absence of essential rescue equipment and emergency response facilities near rivers, reservoirs, and other recreational water sites, is considered among the main factors contributing to these fatalities.
Children continue to account for the majority of drowning victims. According to the NDMA statistics, more than half of those who lost their lives during the reporting period were children, highlighting the risks faced by young people in areas where rivers, canals and reservoirs are easily accessible and often lack protective barriers or warning signs.
