A stray bullet from a yet-to-be-identified source has allegedly hit and killed a 20-month-old child in Umuoba-Uratta, Owerri North Local Government Area of Imo.

The incident occurred at about 10:00 p.m. on Monday.

In an interview with journalists, the mother of the deceased, Kelechi Eleweke, expressed shock over the “mysterious circumstances” surrounding the boy’s death.

Narrating the incident, Mrs Eleweke said she was with the baby on Monday night when she “heard a huge sound and felt a splash of sand-like objects on my body.

“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.”

Mrs Eleweke said she quickly carried the boy and rushed outside for help to get him to a nearby hospital.

The visibly heartbroken woman said that instead of getting help from the hospital, the man, who appeared like a doctor, “demanded a police report before treating my child”.

According to her, despite several pleas to rescue the boy, the man ran a plaster around his head and asked them to take him to the Federal Medical Center (FMC), Owerri.

The child’s father, Mr Okechukwu, said that after waiting for a while on the road, he got a vehicle that took them to FMC, and “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.”

He said the family could not explain where the “mysterious bullet” that killed their child came from, but they gathered on Tuesday morning that there were sporadic gunshots fired in the area on Monday night.

“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,” Mr Okechukwu said.

A former youth leader in the community, Chika Ibeawuchi, who expressed grief over the tragic incident, could not confirm the direction the gunshots came from.

“I don’t know anything about the shootings except that they lasted for more than 30 minutes,” Mr Ibeawuchi said.

He said 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 child.

He appealed to the police to carry out a “diligent investigation” to unravel the circumstances that led to the death of the innocent child.

Efforts to get a reaction from the state police spokesman, DSP Henry Okoye, were unsuccessful, as he neither answered his call nor replied to the text message sent to his cellphone.

However, a senior officer at the divisional headquarters confirmed the incident on the condition of anonymity, adding that they were handling the matter.

(NAN)