4 children drown in Abuja river

FOUR children, Jinkai Hakila, aged 10; Bridget Ibrahim, aged 11; Precious Ezra, aged 14 and Azumi Daniel, aged 16, on Saturday drowned in Danko River, Galadimawa Community, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

A correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), who visited the community, reported that residents were thrown into mourning following the ugly incident.

NAN reported that the four deceased, were washing with others at the river before the incident occurred.

Eyewitnesses told NAN that the incident happened at about 11:00 a.m. when the children were still washing in the river.

Miss Blessing Elisha, 14, an eyewitness, told NAN that they were together at the river washing while others were playing.

She said several efforts made to stop them from playing in the water yielded no result before the incident.

“I actually did not see them entering the water because I was busy washing. Suddenly, I was called that three of them had entered the river. It was then I looked up and saw the fourth one going in and an attempt made to rescue her almost resulted in my getting drowned. Then I left her and ran to call for help,” she said.

Mr Alhassan Abdulwahab, one the first people that responded to the distress call, said it took about three hours to get their corpses out of the river.

He said from information gathered from others at the scene, the youngest of the deceased, Hakila, was the first to enter the river, noting that others were drowned while attempting to rescue their colleagues.

“We came to the scene of the incident immediately we got the information, and it took some time before we discovered their corpses because our nets were already in the river for fishing.

“It was after I pulled out my net with a very big fish in it that I saw the four corpses in the same area with their stomach not swollen,” Abdulwahab said.

NAN reported that the four corpses were buried by the riverside in line with the tradition of the community.