Man 52, two children, died after taking root drug in Anambra

Tragedy has struck a family of seven in Anambra State as three members of the family, including the father and his two female children died, after taking a concoction suspected to be root drug.

Mr. Mathias Chukwuka, aged 52 years, native of Nkitaku village, Agulu in Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra and his two female children aged 11 and 16 years were said to have lost their lives after taking concoction extracted from roots and back of trees.

Scores of sympathisers, including family and distant relations -men and women, youths and elderly wearing mournful looks besieged in Nkitaku family home when newsmen visited the compound yesterday while some able-bodied youths were digging graves in a nearby place where the three deceased would be lay to rest.

The late Chukwuka’s widow who was simply identified by her fond name “Baby” by Chukwuka’s elder brother, Mr. Clement Chukwuka could not be spoken to because she was said to be deliberately kept incommunicado.

Late Chukwuka’s elder brother, Mr. Clement Chukwuka who narrated the story of the sad incident said that the tragedy actually struck his younger brother and his family’s members at Umunze in far away Orumba-South local government area of the state where they were resident.

He said that his late brother had last Tuesday night served his family members some concoctions which he extracted from boiled admixture of roots and back of a tree.

He said that he was told that all the five members of his late brother’s family members who were in the house that fate night, including his late brother; his wife, ‘Baby’ and three out of their five children drank the concoction .

He said that their other two children who did not drink the concoction were living elsewhere, so they were not present in the house that night.

He stated that he was told that shortly after taking the concoction all of them had fallen sick and were rushed to a hospital at Umunze but that two of the children had died in the following morning being Wednesday while their father died later the same day after he, his wife and their last child who also fell sick were relocated to a hospital at their Agulu home town.

He said that his late brother’s wife and their last child were still recuperating in the hospital adding that he was optimistic that they would survive.

He however stated that they did not report the incident to any of the police stations in the state.

Also, when this reporter called the image- maker of the Anambra state police command, Mr. Haruna Mohammed on his mobile telephone yesterday to seek his reaction to the sad incident, he could not pick the call nor call back as at the time of filling this report.