Sisters accidentally drowned while paddling fully clothed, inquest hears

Two sisters accidentally drowned after they paddled fully clothed at a beauty spot in Eryri National Park, an inquest has heard.

Married mother-of-two Hajra Zahid, 29, and her sister Haleema, 25, were pulled from pools on the Watkin Path which leads to the summit of Yr Wyddfa.

Both visited the picturesque wild swimming site and its waterfall – made popular by social media – on the early evening of June 11 with three male friends.

The group of five, who were all students at the University of Chester, split up for privacy and religious reasons as the sisters, who could not swim, headed for a pool upstream on the Afon Cwm Llan river.

The males later called out for the sisters, from Maltby, Rotherham, but got no reply to their shouts and when they reached the pools they noticed their shoes and personal belongings at the side.

They later discovered Hajra floating face down in her red dress.

Caernarfon Coroner’s Court was told they managed to pull an unconscious Hajra onto the river bank but they were unable to find Haleema.

Emergency services were called and two members of Llanberis Mountain Rescue Team later retrieved Haleema, who was wearing blue jeans and a black shirt, from deep water near the waterfall.

Shortly after both women were pronounced dead at the scene.

Llandudno

Detective Constable Gutun Lake, from North Wales Police, told the inquests that the group of five including Luqman Zeb, Jawad Iqbal and Hassan Khan, all from Liverpool, had earlier visited Llandudno.

They then headed to Snowdonia National Park and parked up before a 40-minute walk to the stream.

He said it was a “very hot day” with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees centigrade and that the pools were, in comparison, said to be “extremely cold”.

Assistant Coroner for North West Wales, Sarah Riley, said she found that the sisters had intended to paddle in the water.

She said: “Having considered the evidence that neither could swim and that they were fully clothed I am satisfied that neither sister went to swim or enter parts of the pool that would put them out of their depths in the water.”

She said one possibility was that one or both had fallen from an “exceptionally slippy” slab of rock at the edge of the pools.

The inquest heard that the mountain team rescuers who entered the water had both slipped on the same rock.

Tragic

Concluding their deaths were accidental, she said the sisters had both drowned after they were unable to swim to safety.

She said: “I extend my sincere condolences to their friends and family.

“This is an extremely tragic case and my thoughts remain with them.”

Ms Riley also “urged caution” to the public about the dangers of entering such pools.

The sisters, originally from Rawalpindi, Pakistan, came to the UK in January 2025 to study a Master’s degree in international business.

In a statement read out at the inquests, Hajra’s husband Hessham Minhas said she “always placed herself at the centre of family life”.

He said: “She was a determined, ambitious woman who believed in the power of education and personal growth, with a dream of building a better future for herself and her family.

“Her memory lives on in the lives she touched and the family she left behind.”

Another statement from Raja Azem, a friend of Haleema, said: “Haleema will remain in our hearts and prayers as a loving, daughter, sister and auntie.”