A 21-year-old primary school leaver drowned in a pool dug by the Africa Resource Construction Company (ARC) in Rumbek Central County, police have confirmed.
The incident on Monday was the third of its kind following two others in which two children died in the ARC excavations in Rumbek East County last month.
Lakes State Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) Coordinator Daniel Laat Kon, told Radio Tamazuj on Tuesday that they had learned about the incident on Wednesday.
He said the body had been retrieved.
“We have been engaging these communities and the government to make sure that during road construction, such excavations should be far away from the residential areas, or they should be fenced off,” he said.
“Even adults can drown in them,” he added.
Police Spokesperson Maj Elijah Mabor Makuac said the 21-year-old victim, identified as Laat Dut Theem, who recently sat for the Primary Eight Certificate of Education (P8), drowned at Cuei-adukan area of Rumbek Central County.
Makuac said ARC had used the site to excavate murram for road construction after which it accumulated water during the rainy season.
Boys and children often go there to swim. When the information about the drowning reached the family, and I was called and we searched for the body the whole night, and later involved the UNMISS field office, he said.
The Police Spokesperson said he had been informed that the relatives took the body home for burial.
Makuac advised parents to prevent their children from playing in the large pools.