An urgent search operation is underway for an 11-year-old boy who disappeared after entering a river in South Yorkshire.
Authorities received a call at 7:59 p.m. on Saturday following reports of the boy entering the River Don near Ferry Boat Lane in Mexborough. However, there were no sightings of him exiting the water.
Inspector Neil Pryce from the Doncaster Response Team explained that witness statements and personal belongings found on the riverbank indicated the exact location where the child entered the river.
The search effort involves police officers, fire and rescue teams, paramedics, the National Police Air Service, and a specialized underwater search unit.
It is believed that a friend of the boy alerted authorities after he ventured into the water.
As of Sunday, a sandbank along the river and a section of the Mexborough Canal remain sealed off as part of the ongoing investigation.
One Mexborough resident said: ‘We all used to got there as kids. It only appears when the Don is really low. A lot of youngsters go swimming there.
‘It is only 3ft deep. But it is full of rocks and boulders. All you need to do is bang in your hand and that current is pretty strong. It is very deep further down.
The boy was seen entering the River Don in Mexborough, near Doncaster, on Saturday evening
‘My mother used to go down there swimming. It looks like a beach with a bit of sand. It is the only place you can get down to the river.
‘There are no houses there. All the houses face onto the canal. Youngsters have congregated there for 100 years and I can’t see that changing.
‘We were having a barbecue and the other side of the canal the police were saying they could not go up there.’
Another resident said: ‘The first thing I knew something was wrong was a low flying police helicopter was flying around for ages.’
She added: ‘Then the fire engines came on and ambulances. Then after 10 o’clock the doorbell rang and it was the police asking if we had CCTV for the back.
‘We guessed something had happened at the river or canal. It was very busy with emergency vehicles.’
South Yorkshire Police initially stationed themselves at the first local down the canal believing the body night wash up there. But they had gone by this afternoon.
Inspector Pryce said: ‘We know, from witnesses and items left on the riverbank, where the boy entered the water.
‘Utilising specialist knowledge and skills, a coordinated multi-agency operation is under way and we are doing everything we can to find this young man.
‘We are invaluably assisted by an underwater search team, supported from above by the police helicopter and drones. This is a tragic incident and we understand that members of the public want to do all they can to help but we must ask that, for everyone’s safety, only those who are involved in our operation enter the River Don.’
South Yorkshire Police said: ‘Officers, alongside emergency crews from the National Police Air Service, South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, and the Yorkshire Ambulance Service, responded and a specialist search operation remains under way.’
The boy’s family have been told and are being supported by specialist officers.
His disappearance comes as at least 13 young people died after swimming in open water during the May heatwave, which saw the record for the month’s hottest day broken twice in two days.
A 15-year-old girl died on Saturday after getting into difficulty on a Merseyside beach on Monday.
Chiedza Nyanjowa’s family said she was a ‘bubbly’ person who ‘loved Christ and going to church’.
Chiedza Nyanjowa was believed to be the 13th person to die during the May heatwave
On Friday Police Scotland named a 16-year-old who died after getting into difficulty in the water in Stirlingshire as Charlie Noble.
And on Wednesday the body of 14-year-old Baltazar L’Qui was found in the River Thames while another teenage boy was found in a pond in Swanscombe, Kent.
The same day, a missing teenage boy’s body was found in a lake near Blackwater in Hampshire after he went missing while swimming.
On Tuesday, two boys were found dead, including 17-year-old David Junior-Tita from Crewe, who died at Pickmere Lake in Cheshire.
Junior Slater, 12, also died after getting into difficulty in the River Ribble in Lancashire.
Junior Slater, 12, and Declan Sawyer, 15, both died while swimming in open water during this month’s heatwave
That day police also recovered the body of a drowned 16-year-old boy from Sheffield who died in a Rotherham lake after going missing while swimming.
Muhammad Secka, who had drowned the previous day, was described as a ‘lovely, kind boy’ who dreamed of becoming a doctor.
There were four more deaths on Monday as temperatures reached 34.8C at Kew Gardens and broke the record for the hottest-ever May day.
Among them were 13-year-old Reco Puttock, who was pronounced dead after being found in Leadbeater Dam in Halifax, West Yorkshire.
The same day 16-year-old Lillianna Tomlinson was found dead at Warwickshire’s Kingsbury Water Park.
Heroic grandfather Phil Crow, 68, also died after suffering a cardiac arrest when he ran out to the sea trying to rescue his wife and granddaughter when they got into difficulty at Tregirls Beach in Padstow, Cornwall.
On Sunday, an unnamed 72-year-old woman died off West Angle Beach in Pembrokeshire. In Lincoln that day 15-year-old Declan Sawyer also died after getting into difficulty at Swanholme Lakes.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued heat health alerts for parts of England this week and warned of a greater risk of water-related deaths.
It said there was a higher likelihood of cold-water shock and drowning as more people took to lakes and ponds in the warm weather.
