by crossriverwatch admin
A six year old girl, Edidiong Etok Akpan who was subjected to harrowing maltreatment by her biological father Edet Etok Akpan, was rescued from the claws of death by divine intervention after she had been locked up in a room with her hands, mouth and face bound for four days.
Edidiong said her forty two year old father started beating her on the 19th of February 2013, after one Prophetess Endurance, the prophetess of the church they attend told “my father that I was a witch and I was the one making him not to progress in life”.
She said after the severe beatings which lasted for some days, on Thursday, 21st h February, the father tied her hands with a cord and bond her mouth with a piece of cloth and “locked me in the inner room of our house and he never gave me food and never allowed me to go to school”.
The six year old girl who said she is in transition three in Femos Nursery and Primary School, 24 Etiyin Abasi Street, Calabar was gradually dying after many days without food or water but luck came her way when on Sunday morning, 23rd February at about 11 am.
Another child who lives with her parents in the same 42 Atakpa Street with Eddiong’s parents came to their veranda to look for a broom and heard the sound of loud snorting as the girl was battling with her last breadth and looked through the louvers of the window and saw Edidiong bound on the floor and she screamed.
“She called her parents and other neighbours to come and see Edidiong bound inside their house” Barrister James Ibor of the Basic Rights Counsel, a child rights advocate lawyer who was called to the scene said.
He said when the neighbours saw the girl in that state, one of them called him and he in turn informed the Officer in charge of legal matters at the State Police Command headquarters, Superintendent George and they both drove to the place as “we were going there we also informed the police at Efuk, Mbukpa to join us and when we got there we saw a crowd gathered outside and we knew that was the place and we went in and carried out the rescue by breaking the door”.
He said the girl was “very weak because she had been without food for days and so we had to give her water first, then after about ten minutes we gave her milk before solid food an hour later”.
Barrister Ibor said the culprit and his wife had locked up the girl in the inner room of their two room apartment and went to church in the hope that by the time they came back, the girl may have died. “God saved her and she is now living with her grandmother in another part of town.”
DSP John Umoh, the Cross River State Police Command spokesman said Edet Etok Akpan who is from Akwa Ibom State has been arrested and would soon appear in court to answer charges of felony. “To bind a small girl’s hand and mouth and lock her in a room for days without food is a grievous offence; he shall soon appear in court.” He said.
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