Hristo Grigorov, Chair of the Bulgarian Red Cross, has highlighted the importance of compulsory swimming lessons in school curriculum.

In a Tuesday statement, the BRC Chair cautioned that some 18-20% of Bulgarians were unable to swim, compared to 10% in Germany.

As a rule, before the start of the active summer season, the BRC draws public attention to the problems of water life saving and distributes water safety guidelines for holidaymakers.

Water accidents are most often caused by the lack of water safety awareness, the underestimation of risks when swimming or bathing, the inability to adequately help a person in danger of drowning and the inability to administer first aid.

There are a total of 4000 unguarded bodies of water in Bulgaria, including a range of dams,

micro-dams, rivers, lakes, etc.

The number of lifeguards in Bulgaria, however, is insufficient to provide supervision of these bodies of water, despite the fact that many people like to get into their waters to bathe or swim in the summer.

The BRC has already trained over 50 000 lifeguards and it continues to train more then 1100 water safety experts each year.