A stray bullet from a yet-to-be identified source has killed a one-year-old child at Umuoba-Uratta in Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo State.
It was gathered that the incident occured at about 10 p.m. on Monday, June 9, 2025.
The child, identified as Emmanuel Eleweke, was the third of his parents.
Speaking on Tuesday, the mother of the deceased, Kelechi Eleweke, expressed shock over the “mysterious circumstances” surrounding the boy’s death.
Narrating the incident, the woman said: “I was with him yesterday (Monday) night on my bed after dinner and night prayer.
“One of my prayer points was that his father will not die 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, in spite of my effort to make 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.
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“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.”
Eleweke said 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,” she added.
The woman, who was visibly heartbroken, said instead of getting help from the hospital, the man who appeared like a doctor “demanded a police report before treating my child”.
“Despite our several pleas to him to rescue our son, the man simply ran a plaster round his head and asked us to take him to the Federal Medical Center (FMC), Owerri,” Eleweke disclosed.
She added that because she was half-dressed, she quickly returned home, while her husband continued with the effort to save their son.
Speaking further, the child’s father, Okechukwu Eleweke, said after waiting for a while on the road, 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 FMC gate.
“But getting into the emergency paediatric ward, the doctor on duty quickly examined him and pronounced him dead on arrival.”
Okechukwu stated that the family could not explain where the “mysterious bullet” that killed their child came from.
He said they however gathered on Tuesday morning that there were sporadic gunshots fired in the area on Monday night.
The man added: “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.”
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A former youth leader in the community, Chika Ibeawuchi, who expressed grief over the incident, could not confirm the direction the gunshots came from.
He 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.”
Ibeawuchi disclosed 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 boy.
The Imo State Police Command confirmed the incident, noting that an investigation was ongoing.
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