A study has found migrants make up nearly half of drownings on Australian beaches in the past 17 years, with Indians accounting for the highest number between 2009-2019. In the first multicultural examination of beach safety among a particular community, the University of New South Wales’s (UNSW) Sydney Beach Safety Research Group found that migrants from South Australia were receiving inadequate information about beach safety. Of the 249 respondents from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bhutan to Pakistan, the online survey found that while half did not know how to swim, many still intended to go into the water and many often went in fully clothed. More than half said they had visited unpatrolled beaches. Study co-author Rob Brander said that language barriers also caused them to miss vital beach safety education. “The standard beach safety messages we use, such as ‘swim between the flags’, may not resonate with …