SHARJAH // A four-year-old boy died after falling from a window in his family’s sixth-floor apartment building in Muweilleh.
A resident saw the little boy, from a Pakistani expatriate family, fall at about 9.40am, and called police.
“Police, ambulances and patrols rushed to the scene but the baby was pronounced dead,” a police spokesman said.
“The boy was playing and peering out of the window alone without the monitoring of any family member when he lost balance and fell through the window.
“This is a regrettable accident especially after several police and municipality awareness campaigns regarding the safety of children in homes and the need of parents to pay special care.
“It’s very sad that some people in the community have continued to neglect these warnings and they are putting the lives of their children in danger.”
Municipality regulations require windows in all new buildings in Sharjah to be at least 1.2 metres off the ground and older properties must have devices to prevent them from opening wider than 10 centimetres.
Using verandas and balconies for storage is also banned.
This month a nine-year-old Syrian girl died after falling from her home on the eighth floor of a building in Hamdan Street, Abu Dhabi, and a nine-year-old boy suffered a fractured skull after falling from the balcony of his home in Ajman.
In August a two-year-old girl fell to her death from the balcony of her family’s 14th-floor apartment in Sharjah. The girl was standing on an item of furniture close to the window, playing and looking out the window, when she lost her balance and fell.
ykakande@thenational.ae
