A 2-year-old girl drowned Saturday in Prospect Park lake after wandering away from a family picnic, police and witnesses said.
The body of Ruhshona Kurbonova was pulled from the water by NYPD divers at about 6 p.m., some five hours after she and her 3-year-old cousin were reported missing.
One of the dozens of park-goers who joined in the desperate search for the kids found the little boy, soaked and covered in algae, in a wooded area. He was unhurt.
When the toddler’s body was brought out, her heartbroken mother, Yulduz, screamed — and then collapsed in tears before being taken out on a stretcher.
Dekzod Isokov, the girl’s uncle, said about eight members of the family had been barbecuing kabobs at the Brooklyn park when the children wandered away.
“They just left,” Isokov said. “They walked off and we didn’t know.”
The family had emigrated from Uzbekistan in 2010. The girl’s father, Dilshod Isokov, drives a taxi.
A woman helping in the search, who declined to give her name, saw the family being reunited with the 3-year-old boy.
The searchers who found him “kept asking people, ‘Is this your son?’ Then someone in the family said, ‘That’s my son,’ ’’ one of the searchers said.
“Then [the family] asked if they found a little girl with him,” said the woman. When they answered no, “The news spread like wildfire,” she said.
“More families left their barbecues to help look for the girl.’’
Shazone Dillard, a member of a Pentecostal church group picnicking nearby, searched alongside two teenagers who told her they were the girl’s brothers.
The mother was in a terrible shock — that feeling when you lose something and you go numb.
- 911 caller
“Everyone was just praying,’’ Dillard said.
Later, she said, “my heart was just broken to hear the mother screaming like that.’’
Ruhshona’s devastated 13-year-old cousin, Sitora Ismoilova, speaking at the family’s home in Brooklyn, said the youngster “was going to be three years old on September 27.’’
Sitora, who used to babysit Ruhshona, recalled, “I play with her, go to park. I see her last time Thursday.
“They called me, they told me they’re missing her.’’
She turned on the news and learned her cousin had died. “I was so crying,’’ Sitora said.
Additional reporting by Natasha Velez
