{"id":651277,"date":"2026-05-06T09:50:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651277\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:50:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T09:50:25","slug":"another-calgary-lake-drowning-prompts-renewed-calls-for-safety-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/651277\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Calgary lake drowning prompts renewed calls for safety improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday there was a green flag flying over the beach at Mahogany Lake<\/a> in southeast Calgary, a sign that the lake was open for swimming again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But 48 hours earlier, the beach was a much grimmer scene as first responders pulled the body of 12-year-old boy from the bottom of the lake.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA green flag could be seen flying over the beach at Mahogany Lake on Tuesday, signifying the lake was safe for swimming.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

His family has confirmed the boy was Damilola Afolabi, who had only been in Canada for two months.<\/p>\n

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He went missing around 7:20 p.m. Sunday and had been underwater for 43 minutes before he was pulled from the frigid lake.<\/p>\n

He later died in hospital.<\/p>\n

Friends describe Afolabi as a loving boy who was settling into his new community and making friends before his tragic passing.<\/p>\n

His death is not the first such tragedy at Lake Mahogany, which is one of several community lakes in Calgary that don\u2019t have lifeguards on duty.<\/p>\n

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Just last summer, in August 2025, witnesses reported seeing a young man going under and not resurfacing.<\/p>\n

As scuba divers searched for him, the belongings of another person were discovered on the beach, leading searchers to eventually recover the bodies of two 20-year-old men from the lake.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tMembers of the Calgary Fire Department aquatic rescue team along with EMS paramedics were also called out to the tragic drowning of two 20-year-old men in Lake Mahogany Lake in August 2025.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Peters Ike son Yagazie was one of those young men.<\/p>\n

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Since then he\u2019s been advocating for safety improvements at the lake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can relate to what they are going through right now,\u201d said Ike.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know what it\u2019s like \u2014 and that\u2019s what we hoped we could prevent. I mean, for someone else not to experience what we experienced. So right now, it\u2019s as if the whole thing just came back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ike claims his efforts included meetings with the Mahogany Homeowners Association, Calgary\u2019s mayor, local city councillor and manager of the lake operations.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Investigations
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

Among the changes he has advocated for is improved signage at the lake and an ability classification system for swimmers.<\/p>\n

While Ike says there was a \u201ccollaborative spirit,\u201d change hasn\u2019t come base enough.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tPeters Ike has been advocating for safety improvements at Mahogany Lake since his son was one of two 20-year-old young men who drowned in the lake in August 2025.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is about time, you know.\u00a0 There\u2019s just another boy that\u2019s very soon going to be put to rest \u2014 the first week of May, you already have one fatality.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe season is just about starting \u2014 my view would be perhaps not timely enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Global News contacted the Mahogany Homeowners Association to talk about what if any safety improvements have been made, but the association responded with a statement saying it wanted to allow the family time to grieve.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:57
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tChild in life-threatening condition after reported drowning at Mahogany Beach\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Tuesday there was a green flag flying over the beach at Mahogany Lake in southeast Calgary, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651278,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,241839,48,1132,28462,241840],"class_list":["post-651277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-drowning","tag-canada","tag-fire","tag-investigations","tag-mahogany-lake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651277\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651278"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}