- 20-month-old boy killed by stray bullet in Imo State.
- Private hospital refused treatment without police report.
- Police investigating source of gunfire.
A stray bullet has killed a 20-month-old child at Umuoba-Uratta in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State.
EKO HOT BLOG reports that the stray bullet from the yet-to-be-identified source killed the child, Emmanuel Eleweke, around 10 pm on Monday.
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The child was the third of his parents, Mr and Mrs Okechukwu Eleweke.
In an interview with NAN, the mother of the deceased, Kelechi Eleweke, expressed shock over the “mysterious circumstances” surrounding the boy’s death.
Narrating the incident, Kelechi said, “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 would not die a premature death, and my son answered Amen. We got playing until he laid on my body to sleep. Suddenly, he rolled down from my body and lay on the bed. He refused to sleep despite my efforts to lull him to sleep on my body. Instead, he shrugged off from me.
“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 as he persistently shouted mummy, mummy. The next thing I saw was blood all over his body and the bed.”
She narrated how 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.”
The visibly heartbroken woman said that instead of getting help from the hospital, the man, who appeared like a doctor, “demanded a police report before treating my child”.
She noted that despite their several pleas to him to rescue their son, the man simply ran a plaster around his head and asked them to take him to the Federal Medical Center, Owerri.
She said that because she was half-dressed, she quickly returned home, while her husband continued with the effort to save their son.
On his part, the child’s father, Okechukwu, explained that he had to wait for a while on the road before he finally got a vehicle that took them to 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.”
Okechukwu said that the family could not explain where the “mysterious bullet” that killed their child came from.
They later learnt on Tuesday morning that there were sporadic gunshots fired in the area on Monday night.
Okechukwu said, “I didn’t know about the gunshots until this 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.”
A former youth leader in the community, Chika Ibeawuchi, who also expressed grief over the tragic incident, could not confirm the direction the gunshots came from.
Ibeawuchi said, “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.”
He explained that police officers from the Owerri North Divisional Headquarters came on Tuesday morning and took the baby along with the father to be able to extract the bullet from the child.
He, therefore, urged the police to carry out a “diligent investigation” in a bid to unravel the circumstances that led to the death of the innocent child.
Although efforts to reach the Police Spokesman in the state, DSP Henry Okoye, proved abortive, a senior officer at the divisional headquarters confirmed the incident to NAN on the condition of anonymity.
