A 20-month-old child has been killed by a stray bullet at Umuoba-Uratta, a community in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State, Nigeria’s South-east.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the incident occurred at about 10 p.m. on Monday, and that no one knew who fired the gunshot and why.
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The victim, identified as Emmanuel, was the third child of Mr and Mrs Okechukwu Eleweke.
Heartbroken mother narrates how it happened
In an interview with NAN, the mother of the slain child, Kelechi Eleweke, expressed shock over the mysterious circumstances of the boy’s death.
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“I was with him yesterday (Monday) night on my bed after dinner and night prayer.
“And one of my prayer points was that his father will not die prematurely. My son answered Amen.
“We got playing until he lay on my body to sleep. Suddenly, he rolled down from my body and lay on the bed.
“He refused to sleep, in spite of my effort to lull him to sleep on my body. Instead, he shrugged off.
“A few seconds later, I heard a huge sound and felt a splash of sand-like objects on my body.
“This was followed by my son’s scream for help. He persistently shouted ‘mummy, mummy’.
“The next thing I saw was blood all over his body and on the bed.”
Mrs Eleweke said that she quickly carried him and rushed outside for help.
“My husband too got up and we made efforts to get to a nearby private hospital,” she said.
The visibly heartbroken woman said that when they got to a hospital, a man, apparently a doctor, demanded a police report as a condition for attending to the child.
She said that after appealing for several minutes, the man put a bandage around the boy’s head and directed them to take him to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Owerri.
She said that because she was half-dressed, she quickly returned home while her husband continued to try to save their son.
Pronounced dead by doctor
The child’s father, Okechukwu, said that after waiting for a while on the road, he finally got a vehicle that took them to the FMC.
He said, “For the period we were in transit, I can say the boy was alive until we got to the FMC gate.
“But getting into the emergency paediatric ward, the doctor on duty quickly examined him and pronounced him dead on arrival.”
He said his family could not explain where the bullet that killed their child came from.
However, he said that they learnt on Tuesday morning that there were sporadic gunshots in the area on Monday night.
“I didn’t know about the gunshots until this (Tuesday) morning, when my neighbours talked about them. They said that some people were shooting around our area in the night.
“Whatever they were celebrating that led to my son’s death, we don’t know,” Okechukwu said.
A former youth leader in the community, Chika Ibeawuchi, expressed grief over the tragic incident and said what happened was strange to the community.
“I don’t know anything about the shootings, except that they lasted for more than 30 minutes.
“This is a tragedy. It has never happened before in this community,” Mr Ibeawuchi said.
He said police officers from the Owerri North Police Divisional Headquarters came on Tuesday morning and took the child’s corpse along with the father to extract the bullet.
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He appealed to the police to investigate the incident to unravel who fired the gunshot and why.
The police spokesperson in Imo, Henry Okoye, did not respond to phone calls and a text message seeking his comment.
However, a senior policer officer at the Owerri North Police Divisional Headquarters, who did not want his name mentioned in the story because he was not authorised to speak on the matter, confirmed the incident.
He said the police were investigating the incident.
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