Two Pakistani children drown at Ras Al Khaimah's old Corniche

Two Pakistani children, aged 12, drowned off the coast of the Old Corniche in Ras Al Khaimah last Sunday, while the brother of one of them was rescued by an Egyptian young man, who happened to be swimming at the site.

The tragic incident, which claimed the lives of the two friends, left a state of sadness and grief among the Pakistani community and the local community in general in Ras Al Khaimah and the UAE.

The father of one of the children, Omar Asif Mohammed Asif, stated that his son and his friend, Hammad Asif, went to the sea unexpectedly and without the family’s knowledge.

This was only the second time he had gone to the sea; the previous time he had gone with his uncle but they did not swim at that time, he said, noting that he always refused his son’s requests to go to the sea.

Father always believed it was not safe as he had heard of previous drowning incidents.

Asif Mohammed, the father of the child 'Omar,' said that he had spent 22 years in the UAE and had two sons, one of whom was the victim, the eldest, while the second was 9 years old, who survived drowning in the same incident.

He added that he owned a mobile phone trading shop in Dahan market in Ras Al Khaimah, known as the Old Corniche, where the drowning incident occurred on the nearby beach at 5pm.

The grieving father explained that they checked the Wi-Fi network of the shop his son Omar frequented daily and discovered that his son’s last activity on WhatsApp was at 4:13pm.

A security camera belonging to an abaya shop in the Kuwaiti market, located 100 metres from his mobile phone trading shop, captured the three children, including the two who drowned, walking in the street at 4:28pm, he said.

The father indicated that he learned of the drowning of his son and his friend from a neighbour in the shop, so he rushed to call his son’s phone but someone at the sea site answered him and told him that his child had been transferred to Saqr Government Hospital in Ras Al Khaimah.

He rushed to the hospital hoping to see his son alive but the child had already passed away.

Expressing his great thanks and appreciation for the efforts of Ras Al Khaimah Police in trying to save the children, he said the three children were not good at swimming.