VANGUARD
EVEN if your heart is made of stone, you will weep at the sight and circumstances of the famished innocent babies, children, women, and men of the Okuama community, at their sanctuary in a forest in a part of the state.
The villagers displaced from their homeland because of the March 14 brutal massacre of 17 soldiers in Okuama by suspected crude oil bunkers and militants had fled into the deep forests where they had been living in shocking conditions, drinking polluted water and without food, in the past 21 days.
Snakes and other dangerous animals play host to them for many nights.
The adults jumped with joy, searching for any available food items and water as Saturday Vanguard reporters, and their escorts arrived at the concealed encampment. It took our snooping investigative journalists a week to get information about their forest whereabouts, and another three days to arrange logistics for the trip.
Read their soul-stirring revelations:
Gunmen in 4 boats from Bomadi side opened fire on soldiers, villagers — Evelyn Edjekota, a 45-year-old mother of seven
I am a trader and a farmer, I do not know where my husband is since the day the crisis started, he is still in the bush.
That fateful day, I was in the house, and many people had gone to the farm, I saw many people coming to the community wearing military uniforms, and most men had left for farms too, we were scared but some person said that we should all come to the town hall.
We told them that our chairman had gone to the farm, and two leaders called him from the farm. We then entertained them before our chairman came. They said they wanted to go with our chairman and leaders. We inquired why they would arrest them.
Therefore, other women and I resisted and held them on the legs, and were pleading, they said if we resisted, they would shoot, next thing was fire, I did not even know how I escaped.
They shot many people instantly. Later on, other boats came from the Bomadi axis of the river and opened fire on the people at the jetty, including the army.
Immediately, we ran into the bush, we heard that soldiers were coming again. Now, I have not seen my two children, Omafuvwe and Andrew, including my husband.
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