3 drown in separate holiday tragedies

The long holiday weekend was the backdrop for three drownings. Branch Mouth, the area where the Macal and Mopan merge to form the Belize River, was the scene of a death Saturday. Twenty-three year old Nicholas Mencias of August Pine Ridge, was swimming around three in the afternoon when a friend saw him go underwater and not resurface. The body was recovered about ten minutes later.

The following night twenty-seven year old Rolando Zetina of Corozal Town was crossing the Rio Hondo at the Pueblo Nuevo Ferry near Progresso when, according to his sister-in-law, he jumped into the river. Zetina reportedly resurfaced twice and then disappeared. His body was not recovered until Monday morning.

And drowning is believed to be the cause of death of a seven-year-old boy from Cowpen Village in the Stann Creek District. According to his mother, Jorge Velasquez left home around three on Friday afternoon. An hour and a half later his body was found in the nearby Las Vegas River. Police report no signs of violence on the child’s body. A postmortem conducted this afternoon at Southern Regional Hospital reportedly concludes that Velasquez died of asphyxia due to drowning.