SUKKUR: Two young boys drowned in an uncovered sewage drain near Special Force Ground area in Jacobabad on Saturday and their teenage cousin, who had jumped after his relatives to rescue them, was saved but he was fighting for his life in hospital.

Local sources said the 9-year-old Rahim Ali Gopang and his cousin 10-year-old Khuda Bakhsh Gopang were playing on the drain’s bank outside their home when they slipped into the nullah.

As their 14-year-old cousin, Zamin Ali Gopang, saw them struggling for life, he jumped after them into the drain to save them but he himself fainted before he could help them.

By that time, other elder relatives of the boys and residents of the locality rushed to take the cousins out of the drain and shift them Civil Hospital where Zamin Ali and Khuda Bakhsh died, while Rahim Ali continued to battle for his life amid lack of facilities at the hospital, said the victims’ families.