Two sisters accidentally drowned after rowing fully clothed at a scenic spot in a national park in Wales, an inquest has heard.
Hajra Zahid, 29, and her sister Haleema, 25, were pulled from pools on the Watkin Trail, which leads to the summit of Snowdon Mountain.
The pair visited the picturesque wild swimming spot and its waterfall in Eryri (Snowdonia) National Park, in the Nant Gwynant area of Gwynedd, on June 11, 2025 with three male friends.
The group of five, all students at the University of Chester, were separated for religious and privacy reasons when the sisters, who did not know how to swim, headed to a pool upstream on the Afon Cwm Llan River.
The men later called out to the sisters, from Rotherham in South Yorkshire, but got no response to their cries and when they arrived at the pools they noticed their shoes and personal belongings lying aside.
They later discovered Hajra, a married mother of two, floating face down in her red dress.
Caernarfon Coroner’s Court was told they managed to drag an unconscious Hajra to the riverbank but could not find Haleema.
Emergency services were called and two members of the Llanberis mountain rescue team later recovered 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.
North West Wales assistant coroner Sarah Riley said she found the sisters had intended to row in the water.
She said: “Having considered the evidence that neither of them knew how to swim and that they were fully clothed, I am satisfied that neither sister went swimming or entered parts of the pool that would take them out of the depths of the water.”
He said one possibility was that one or both had fallen from an “exceptionally slippery” slab of rock at the edge of the pools.
According to the investigation, the mountain team rescuers who entered the water had slipped on the same rock.
Concluding that their deaths were accidental, he said that both sisters had drowned after they were unable to swim to safety.
She said: “I extend my deepest condolences to his friends and family. This is an extremely tragic case and my thoughts remain with them.”
Riley also “asked for caution” from the public about the dangers of entering such pools.
The sisters, originally from Rawalpindi in northern Pakistan, arrived in the UK in January 2025 to study for a master’s degree in international business.
In a statement read during the investigations, Hajra’s husband, Hessham Minhas, said she “always placed herself at the center of family life.”
He said: “She was a determined and ambitious woman who believed in the power of education and personal growth, with the dream of building a better future for herself and her family.
“His memory lives on in the lives he touched and the family he left behind.”
