AMMAN — With the scorching summer heat,
many of the children of Deir Alla, located in Balqa Governorate, play around
the King Abdullah Canal.
Among these children, was Muhammad Bashar
Al-Shatti, who drowned in the canal in mid-June.
اضافة اعلان
Mustafa Al-Shatti, the boy’s cousin and
former mayor of Deir Alla, told
Jordan News that he has pleaded with the
Jordan Valley Authority to take action to end the deaths and drownings in the canal.
“We had a video interview with one of the
local stations in which we protested about the dangerous position of” the
canal, said Shatti.
Just a week later, his cousin died.
Shatti demanded that a fence be placed between
the canal and the residential area and school, as they are very close to the
canal — no more than 10 meters away from it. He said that seeing the canal and
crossing it still causes Muhammad Bashar’s parents and siblings’ pain.
Fawaz Abu Ammash, a social activist in
Deir Alla, said that the canal's benefits have been turned into a curse.
A history of accidents
Since its construction in 1963, children
have fled the Jordan Valley's burning heat to seek refuge in the waters of the
canal. The people in the area are unable
to construct or even use cooling units due to high electricity prices, and the
area lacks any recreational areas or playgrounds for children.
According to Abu Ammash, the people of the
area are unanimous in their demand for a canal fence and periodic maintenance
of the old, worn-out fence, which the authority has left unmaintained for more
than 8 years, they said. The cost of a fence needed to enclose the canal ranges
in the hundreds of thousands.
“We
are aware of parents’ responsibility to prevent children from going to the
canal, but the authority has the greatest responsibility,” she said.
The
Jordan Valley Authority obtained a verdict from the Court of Cassation nearly
four years ago that it was not responsible for the drowning cases.
Over the last 15 years, around 150 people
— 70 percent of which were children — have died in the canal, according to Abu
Ammash.
A person from the area, speaking to Jordan
News, claimed that at one point there was a project to build a cement wall around
the canal, which would of cost around JD80,000. However, the source said that
the project was abandoned without explanation.
Secretary General of the Jordan Valley
Authority, Manar Mahasnah, told
Jordan News that the authority is not
responsible for drownings, stressing that swimming is prohibited in the area.
She added that many people tend to tamper
with the fences around the channel, and cooperative measures must be taken to
prevent such accidents.
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