Fresh facts emerge over gunmen attack in Ohafia community in Abia

[From BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia]

Details have emerged on how gunmen killed about five persons, including a woman and her two daughters, in the rural community of Amangwu Ohafia in Ohafia Local Government Area of Abia State.

It was gathered that the dead were slain in a two-day attack on the community by gunmen.

The attack on Amangwa Ohafia community which took place last Monday and Tuesday, left five persons dead, several others seriously injured and many houses razed.

The dead woman, identified as Mrs. Ucha Kalu Ndukwe, according to sources, was a former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Women Leader in the community. She was shot alongside her first daughter, Chibuzor Nora Ndukwe, said to have came home from Lagos, and another of her daughter who was shot but was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, where she died of gunshot wounds she sustained.

Names of the two young men killed on Monday were given as Kalu Uma and Ndubuisi Ndukwe.

There are conflicting reports about what provoked the killings.

While one account alleged that some unnamed individuals housing the suspected gunmen in their facilities in Ohafia we’re confronted and the gunmen who were also questioned about their mission in the community, responded by burning down some houses, including a shop belonging to late Mrs. Ucha Kalu Ndukwe on Monday.

Another account said the orgy of violence erupted as a result of the crisis between two factions of ESN taking refuge in the community.

After burning Mrs. Ucha’s shop, it was said that on Tuesday, the hoodlums traced her to her house and shot her dead. They also killed her first daughter, Norah, and shot another of her daughter who managed to crawl to where help came and she was rushed to FMC, Umuahia, where doctors battled to save her life but to no avail.

It was alleged that when the gunmen returned to the scene and could not find the third victim, they set the corpses of the former PDP Women Leader and that of her first daughter ablaze.

The source said the gunmen had on Monday killed two men in the community.

Commenting on the incident, Executive Chairman of Ohafia Government Area, Dr Okoroafor Ukiwe, said: “From information available to us, the problem is that a fight broke out between members of two ESN factions in the village.

“The other group felt that the woman who sells food in the community was not in support of their activities in the community.

“They went to her shop and burnt it down, came to her house and gunned her down and when two of her daughters came out, they (gunmen) shot them.

“One died on the spot while the other one who sustained bullet injury was rushed to the hospital and is receiving treatment at the intensive care unit (but she later died). Two other boys were also killed by the gunmen.”

The Ohafia LGA boss vowed to ensure that the families of the deceased would get justice.

He assured that security agencies in the area were on top of the matter and would fish out perpetrators of the barbaric act.

Already, Ukiwe, had after a security meeting at the Ebem Council headquarters of Ohafia local government area, set up a committee to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the killings in Amangwu Ohafia Community.

He urged youths of the Council to stop being used as agents of destabilisation and insecurity in the local government, reiterating the commitment of his administration to meaningfully engage with youths.

Meanwhile, the police in Umuahia have said that the matter has not been reported to the Police.