As the world marks World Children’s Day, my mind remains unsettled by the tragic death of Peter Kirwana, a student who drowned in a swimming pool at St Mary’s College Kisubi in Wakiso District.
Even as children recited poems and danced during this year’s celebrations, the image of Peter’s final moments overshadowed the festivities.
For years, Uganda and many developing countries have continued to lose children to preventable drowning incidents, yet drowning prevention remains conspicuously neglected in public health planning.
It is astounding that despite recurring tragedies, governments and development partners still treat drowning as a peripheral concern instead of a pressing public health emergency.
Drowning is defined as respiratory impairment due to immersion or submersion in a liquid. It is swift, silent and often fatal. The 2024 WHO report estimates that more than 300,000 people die annually from drowning, with 92 percent of these deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries such as Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya and Malawi.
In Uganda alone, a recent Makerere University School of Public Health study shows that about 3,000 people die from drowning each year—an average of nine deaths daily. Children aged 5 to 25 remain the most vulnerable.
The death of young Peter brings back painful memories of my nine-year-old nephew, Frank Kayondo, who drowned after slipping into a muddy pond near our home. His death was never formally recorded, just like many others who perish in lakes, rivers, swamps, open pits and during floods.
These silent tragedies continue to happen across the country: a three-year-old boy, Ssali Hinda Jaiden, who drowned in a water pit in Luuka District as his parents attended a SACCO meeting; a 10-year-old child swept away by floods in Bwaise; and, beyond Uganda’s borders, several children who died after drowning in Kachule Dam in Mangochi District, Malawi.
In 2019, former minister Ronald Kibuule lost his twin children in a home swimming pool. These incidents leave permanent trauma for families. Survivors, when they are lucky, often live with long-term neurological complications.
According to WHO, drowning is the fourth leading cause of death among children aged 1 to 4 years, after respiratory infections, malaria and diarrhoeal diseases. It remains the third leading cause of death among children aged 5 to 14.
The causes of drowning are well documented: poor supervision of children, delayed rescue, lack of swimming skills, unsafe water bodies, low usage of life jackets, parental negligence, absence of community awareness and lack of barriers around hazardous aquatic spaces.
As we commemorate World Children’s Day, this is a call to action. Parents, teachers, local leaders and communities must take responsibility for protecting children from preventable tragedies.
Parents and guardians must prioritise close supervision whenever children are near water. This alone could have saved young Ssali in Luuka.
Local governments, civil society organisations and philanthropists should invest in swimming lessons for children, teachers and caregivers. Safe swimming skills are not luxuries; they are lifesaving tools. Communities should consider installing barriers around dangerous water bodies such as ponds, swamps and lakes to restrict unsupervised access. Safe spaces for preschool children can also help keep them far from danger.
Training community stewards in safe rescue and resuscitation, introducing community swim programmes and enforcing safe boating and ferry regulations in lake districts must become part of local safety frameworks. Government institutions, working with communities, should deploy basic weather monitoring tools to warn residents about flood risks.
All these interventions must be amplified by awareness campaigns led by civil society, the media and occupational health and safety actors. Without public awareness, even the best interventions will fall short.
World Children’s Day should remind us that children everywhere deserve safety, dignity and protection. Uganda loses more than 3,000 people to drowning every year, and more than 30,000 die across low- and middle-income countries. These numbers represent children whose dreams ended too soon.
Anyone can drown, but surely not the youngest members of our human family. It is our duty to ensure that their lives are protected.
Robert Kigongo is a children’s rights advocate and a sustainable development analyst.