Last year 105 people accidentally drowned in the Netherlands, including 32 people who were not residents – either because they were tourists or temporary workers- according to new figures from national statistics agency CBS. 

Most of them drowned in a lake or the sea, but some 20% drowned at home, such as in the bath, the CBS said on Tuesday. In addition to the 105, a further 39 people died when their bike or car ended up in the water or they were in some sort of boating accident. 

Figures covering the last 10 years show almost half of the drowning victims were over the age of 60 and 8% were under the age of 10. They also show that children with ethnic minority roots are three times as likely to die by drowning as their Dutch peers.

The total number of drownings in the Netherlands has gone down significantly since the 1950s, the CBS said, when between 400 to 500 people perished each year. Of them, 266 were young children, a statistic which eventually led to the introduction of swimming lessons at school. 

The national swimming safety council NRZ told the Telegraaf on Tuesday that local authorities must again make swimming lessons a compulsory part of the school curriculum.

Currently only around 25% of school children have regular swimming lessons, the NRZ says.

“It needs to be 100%,” director Titus Visser told the paper. “We are a land of water and that brings major dangers with it. You can reduce that if you give children the skills to deal with it if they unexpectedly fall in.”

The NRZ is currently working with the refugee settlement agency COA to introduce swimming lessons at refugee centres.