Girl, parents drown in latest selfie death

PESHAWAR (AFP)
An 11-year-old girl drowned on Tuesday after falling into a river in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, while taking a selfie and her parents also died trying to save her, officials said.

The drownings occurred in the Kunhar River that flows through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, at a tourist spot in Beesian village. According to reports, the girl, Safia Atif, was trying to take a selfie along the river when she slipped and fell. Safia's mother Shazia Atif then jumped in to save her daughter but was swept away. Seeing both his wife and daughter drowning, father Atif Hussain also jumped in to rescue them, but he met a similar fate.

Local police official Arshad Khan said, "The dead bodies of the mother and daughter have been recovered, while we are still looking for the body of Hussain."

He added that the parents were doctors from Punjab province and had taken their family to the area on a holiday. The family included two more children a nine-year-old daughter and six-year-old son. "Both of them are in the protective custody of the local administration and they will be handed over to their family members when they arrive," Khan said. The incident was confirmed by other administration officials and family members of the deceased. An official said the government had put up signs warning people not to go near the river. "Each year around a dozen people drown here," he said requesting not to be named. "This is a tourist spot and people usually come here for picnic and most of them are outsiders who have no idea about the depth of the river," he said. 

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