Teen girls who drowned off Coney Island ID’d as sisters who were ‘just gonna have their last swim,’ family says
Two teenage girls who drowned off Coney Island over Fourth of July weekend were sisters who had just jumped into the ocean for their last swim of the day when they vanished, heartbroken family members told The Post.
Aisha Mohammed, 18, and Zainab Mohammed, 17, of the Bronx were reported missing around 8:10 p.m. Friday near Stillwell Avenue in Brooklyn by a caller who said they “entered the water and disappeared from view,” a police spokesman said.
The teens were found on the shoreline at 9:15 p.m. and rushed to Coney Island Hospital, where they were pronounced dead, the NYPD said.
“They were just trying to have fun out there,” the girls’ uncle Tahir Mohammed, 48, told The Post. “They thought they were just gonna have their last swim and come out.”
It was only their second time going to the beach, Julia Mohammad added.
Outside their grandmother’s home in the Bronx on Saturday, around a dozen family members and friends gathered outside of the building, many bringing food and drinks.
Aisha and Zainab’s mother, Tani Ibrahim Ali, was upstairs in the apartment grieving.
“She can’t speak, she’s beside herself,” Tahir Mohammed said.
Another cousin, Julia Mohammed, 20, said that Aisha saw her younger sister Zaina struggling in the ocean and went in to help.
One of their male cousins jumped in the water to help but was unable to save the sisters.
They were hanging out with a group of about 12 other people enjoying a sunny day at the popular beach when the skies suddenly opened up in a heavy downpour, cousin Adam Mohammed said.
He had just changed and was returning to the group when he spotted the girls being swept out to sea in a strong current with his brother swimming after them.
His brother “didn’t know who to help first. He reached for the one closest to him and she started panicking, so she started dragging him down with her,” he said.
“By the time he managed to get to the surface, the two were long gone.”
Aisha was the family hair stylist, Julia said, and had just started working at Panera Bread. Zainab worked in child care.
Nadia Sadat, 17, a high school student and friend of the sisters said she was so upset she hasn’t been able to eat.
“It really hurt me that they really died. I wish I was with them, too, because I’m so sad to lose my friends and stuff,” she said.
The Mohammeds are originally from Ghana, though the girls’ parents have been in the city for decades and the teenagers were born here.
One of the girls’ other sisters, who did not wish to be named, said there would be a memorial service on Monday or Tuesday.
Lifeguards at the beach are on duty between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., according to the city’s Department of Parks.
Swimming is not allowed outside of those hours.
The sisters’ deaths brought the total number of drownings so far this summer in the city to four.
Two teenage boys were swept away off Jacob Riis Park in the Rockaways, Queens, on June 21 and later found dead.
The bodies of Elyjha Chandler, 16, and Christian Perkins, 17, were found June 29 near where they disappeared.
“This has been consistent ever since summer happened,” Tahir Mohammed said.
“This is the fourth or whatever drowning that they’ve had at the beach, and I think they need to do more. Something has to be done. Even if they have to ban people from swimming, they have to do something.”
