Four unsupervised children drowned while swimming in a pool of water in the Susa municipality of central Colombia’s Cundinamarca department.
The four children drowned in what firemen described as a hole filled with water from the heavy rains, and unfit for swimming, in the municipality approximately 80 miles from Bogota.
“The community notified the authorities when they saw the minors in the place [pond]. Afterwards, they proceeded to rescue the children, but unfortunately they were already dead,” explained Alvaro Farfan, from the Susa fire department.
It appears to officials that the minors, two of eight years of age, one four and one 13, were home alone when they decided to venture to the nearby make-shift pond.
“We want to make an appeal to the parents to be aware of their children, and to the authorities to seal and mark these places,” said Farfan.
According to newspaper El Tiempo, three cases of children drowning in ponds have already been reported in the Cundinamarca department this year.