Four children – 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 said 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 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 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)
Photo: A grieving mother of one of the children, courtesy: NAN
