Last update - 00:00 02/12/2007
Twelve-year-old Bedouin boy drowns in stream in Negev
By Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz Correspondent
A 12-year-old Bedouin boy drowned Sunday in Wadi Yatir, located between the Bedouin town of Khoura and another unrecognized Bedouin village.
Nearby residents maintain that the boy was playing in a stream nearby, because school was closed after stream was engorged after the recent rains. The boy drowned while passing through the stream, and was taken by his father to Khoura's medical clinic, where respiration attempts failed.
In the nearby village of Al-Atrash, around 600 students went through the same experience, after their school bus was unable to pass through the stream, and instead they were forced to walk through the stream.
Last year, a similar incident occurred when nine-year-old Salman al-Atrash was killed while riding a school bus.
At the time, the parents' association went on strike protesting the route to school which they maintained was dangerous and requested for the road to be paved.
The Arab Educational Forum of the Negev said the National Planning and Construction Council approved a plan for such a project, but was not implemented.
Ibrahim Al-Atrash, chairman of the association, said that before the start of the school year he had sent several letters to government ministries warning of the dangers of using the unpaved road.
The Arab Educational Forum said it had also raised the issue in a strongly-worded letter, predicting that "no bus that uses the road will reach its destination safely."