Horrible! Soldiers accused of stomping 20-month-old baby to death (photo)
– Maureen Atori accused soldiers from the 4th Brigade in Benin, Edo state, attached to Presco Oil Plc in Delta state of having killed her 20-month-old baby
– A police source at the Abraka police station dismisses the mother’s claim
– Evans Iwhurie, the member representing Ethiope East constituency in the Delta state House of Assembly, stressed that he would not allow such kind of criminality to happen under his watch
– Hundreds of youths from Eku community took to the streets appealing to the Delta state government to set up an investigation panel
Maureen and Collins Atori and their baby.
Soldiers from the 4th Brigade in Benin, Edo state, attached to Presco Oil Plc, Ovre-Eku in Ethiope East local government area of Delta state, have been accused of killing a 20-month-old baby.
Vanguard reports that the soldiers in company of some policemen stormed Eku community on Wednesday, April 6. They were looking for youths suspected to have burnt down an excavator belonging to the company.
Maureen Atori, the mother of the baby, said that she was in bed with her husband, Collins Atori, when a team of soldiers and policemen broke into their apartment and tried to forcefully take her husband away.
“As they (soldiers and policemen) were beating my husband and dragging him on the ground, I and my second son were pleading with them to tamper justice with mercy and leave him alone. It was during the commotion that one of the soldiers stomped on my baby, David.”
“Though it did not occur to me that the impact on my baby was that serious as I was more concerned about the whereabouts of my husband, until he (David) started acting strange and later died as he was being rushed to the hospital,” she said.
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Speaking on condition of anonymity, a police source at the Abraka police station, said that security operatives did not stomp on the baby.
He added that the security operatives only arrested the father of the late infant and two others, Shedrack and Christopher Usobotie, fingered in the alleged burning of an excavator belonging to the company.
Evans Iwhurie, the member representing Ethiope East constituency in the Delta state House of Assembly, also spoke on the incident that led to the death of the infant.
Stressing that he would not sit back and watch this sad development, Iwhurie said:
“When I was informed about the incident, I contacted the district officer of Eku police post, who informed me that no such entry as regards the incident was made at his police post, instead a similar entry was entered at the Abraka police station where Presco had filed a petition and made an entry to embark on the arrests made.
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“Personally, I will not allow this kind of criminality to happen under my watch while my people are being brutalized and molested over their land by a company using soldiers from the 4th Brigade and policemen to intimidate and harass them.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of youths from the community took to the streets appealing to the Delta state government to set up an investigation panel and caution the management of the company.
The angered youths lamented that “though the country is in democratic dispensation, citizens are being brutalized and molested by soldiers in a ‘slave and master’ manner.”
In a related development, nembers of Bundigari community in Damaturu, Yobe state, accused some soldiers of the Nigerian army of extrajudicial killing of a 26-year-old Ibrahim Bala.
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