Four children drown in Abuja

Four children namely, Jinkai Hakila, 10, Bridget Ibrahim, 11, Precious Ezra, 14 and Azumi
Daniel, 16, were on Saturday found drowned in Danko River, Galadimawa Community, FCT
suburb.

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

The four deceased and other children were at the river for
washing before the incident
occurred.

Some eye witnesses told NAN that the incident happened at about 11 a.m. when the children were still washing in the river.

Miss Blessing Elisha, 14, an eye witness, said that they were together at the river washing
while others were playing.

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

“I actually did not see them entering the waterbbecause 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 looked like I was 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 the information gathered from other children at the scene showed that the
youngest of the deceased, Hakila was the first to enter the river.

He said other children 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 reports that the four corpses were buried by the river side in line with the tradition of the community. (NAN)