Gaza, Publication and Information Unit:
The child protection teams at the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution completed the fencing of the sewage pools in the Beit Lahia area in the north of the Gaza Strip, after the death of a Palestinian child a week ago as a result of falling into one of the wastewater pools. The death of the child Ayman Al-Zein, aged 11, caused a great outcry on the Palestinian street.
In the same framework, a delegation from the child protection teams paid condolences to the child's family two days after the incident, visiting the home of the deceased and sitting with his father, after which the child protection teams decided to work on fencing the sewage pools in the Beit Lahia area.
Commenting on the death of the child Al-Zein and while a Conflict Resolution delegation inspected the site of the incident, the director of the Conflict Resolution Center's Gaza branch, Iyad Abu Hjair, stressed that this incident is painful and shows a lack of responsibility on the part of the competent bodies in protecting children and keeping them from approaching dangerous places. He added: "At the Centre we will not stand with our hands tied; we will be in contact with all the bodies concerned and find lasting solutions to prevent such incidents from recurring within society, and seek to secure a safe and sound environment for our children."
For his part, the coordinator of the child protection teams in the North governorate, Rabie Hamouda, pointed out that the child protection team will work on fencing all the gaps around the pools to ensure children cannot enter, saying: "We will fence 150 metres of gaps and close them completely in the area of the sewage pools, whose area reaches around 400 dunams."
For his part, the deceased child's father, Munim Al-Zein, appealed for the need to close these areas that endanger residents' lives in the North governorate, to ensure this incident is not repeated with other children. He stressed that the loss of his young son was a disaster for his family and that decision-makers must shoulder their responsibilities towards the people of their homeland, as he put it, and protect the children in that area, which is close to a cluster of schools.
It is noted that this is not the first time victims have fallen as a result of the sewage pools in Beit Lahia: in 2007 a number of citizens were killed and dozens injured when the sewage pools flooded over citizens' homes in the Bedouin village of Umm Al-Nasr, as a result of the accumulation of wastewater and the failure to empty the pools at that time.
A young man looks at the site of the drowning of the child Al-Zein in Beit Lahia yesterday
