UPDATED – Tragedy in Tbilisi – an eighth-grade student fell into a pit in Rike Park and drowned, TV Pirveli reported. Reportedly, there were no warning signs or safety measures in the area (the area surrounding the ‘Rike Jugs’) where the tragedy occurred.
On Saturday, January 25, 16-year-old Ioseb Adeishvili, who had just finished his music lesson, went to the park with his friends and accidentally fell into a ditch that had been covered with a wooden board. The board broke open and the teen fell into a hole that was several meters deep and filled with rainwater. His friends tried to save the teenager, but with his wet clothes weighing him down, his mother told journalists, he was too heavy to pull out and slipped into unconsciousness and drowned.
Eyewitnesses claim that police and ambulance services took over 30 minutes to arrive at the scene, and some told TV Pirveli that this is not the first time someone has fallen into the poorly-covered ditch.
The tragedy has brought a storm of condemnation, with opposition parties politicizing the fact and blaming the Georgian Dram party and Tbilisi City Hall for corruption and negligence, while they answer with the claim that the death happened “on private property” and so was not within the municipality’s jurisdiction to prevent.
An investigation into the incident was launched under Article 115 of the Criminal Code, which refers to incitement to suicide.
