“We do not want to let this happen to another child”

The swimming pool at the Village at the Creek apartment complex in Clarkston where a 9-year old boy drowned on June 7.

Members of the Rohingya community gathered at Masjid Al-Momineen in Clarkston on Tuesday for the funeral of a 9-year-old boy who drowned in a pool at an apartment complex just days earlier.

“What can I say?” said Ayub Mohammed, President of the Burmese Rohingya Community of Georgia. “Both parents are lost in mind and became like children.”

“We do not want to let this happen to another child,” he said. He’s calling for the pool at Village at the Creek apartments, where the drowning occurred, to “be closed down completely,” following the example set by other apartment complexes in the area who have closed their pools, he said.

Strategic Management Partners, the property management company that manages Village at the Creek, had not responded to a request for comment, at the time of publication.

A Dekalb County Police spokesperson said officers had responded to the incident at 6:08 pm on June 7. “When they arrived, they located a 9-year-old boy who was unconscious. He was transported to an area hospital where he later succumbed to his injuries. Detectives responded to the scene to further the investigation.”

Both Dekalb County Police and Clarkston Police told 285 South that just two days later, on June 9, a 10-year old boy who was at the swimming pool of the Silver Oaks Apartments on Brockett Road in Clarkson nearly drowned, and was rushed to a local hospital. He survived.

Drowning is the leading cause of death for children in the U.S. between the ages of 1 and 4. In Georgia, there were at least 39 reported drownings in 2023, according to the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which tracks drownings in natural bodies of water (their data doesn’t include swimming pools). Two years ago, 4-year old Matteo Acosta-Diaz drowned at a pool in an apartment complex in Roswell. Eight years prior to that, a 4-year old child fell and drowned in the swimming pool at the Southern Place apartments in Clarkston, less than two miles down the road from where the drowning occurred earlier this week.

Globally, drowning disproportionately low income countries and minority populations in high income countries, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) report that looked at drowning deaths of children worldwide. Children from ethnic minority groups faced a two to four times increased risk of drowning. Some explanations, “include differences in swimming ability and experience in the water, lack of opportunities to learn to swim and lack of supervision in environments where such population groups are at high-risk.”

There are some free or reduced-cost swimming lessons and water safety trainings in the Atlanta area – but finding resources that are accessible to people who are recent refugees or asylum seekers, and don’t speak either English or Spanish, is hard.

The YMCA of Metro Atlanta says it does use the Milan Pool in Clarkston to teach children to swim.

“With the recent drowning, we are trying to get this information out to as many people as imaginable,” said Mike Rieman, who works on the communications team at the Y. “My understanding is additional offerings will be starting soon in the Clarkston area as well.”

After learning about the drowning incident from 285 South, Dekalb County Commissioner Ted Terry told the publication that he “will investigate what it will take to create and fund” swimming lessons that are accessible to multilingual families in the hope that it prevents “tragedies happening again.” 285 South will continue to follow up with his office, and the YMCA to track the possibility of additional resources for swimming safety.

“He was a very active boy,” Ayub told 285 South on Thursday, after sharing a video of the 9-year old when he was at the Rohingya community center. The video shows him learning the Quran.

Free or reduced cost swim safety resources:

World’s Largest Swimming Lesson: The Milam Pool in Clarkston will host a two hour free swimming lesson from 9am to 11am on Thursday, June 20. Register here.

The Swem School offers scholarships for families. Call 678) 247-4599 for more information.

The YMCA also offers financial assistance for families interested in swimming lessons. Apply for financial assistance here.

More resources here.