Soldiers attached to 3Battalion, under Sector 1 Command, ‘Operation Delta Safe”, Effurun Barracks, have been accused of being responsible for the death of a 14-year-old girl, identified as Aghogho, at Old Welfare area of Igbudu community in Warri South Council area of Delta State.
A group, Delta Communities Transparency Advocacy Initiative, DCTAI, made the accusation in a statement in Warri, insisting that its findings revealed that the rival cult clash that took place in the area in the evening of Sunday, June 13, 202l, involved the use of only dangerous weapons such as knives, cutlasses and broken bottles until soldiers arrived the scene.
DCTAI National Coordinator, Chief Matthew Edafe and Secretary, Comrade Philip Onokpite, who both signed the statement disclosed that it was in an attempt to disperse the warring cult groups that the soldiers fired warning shots into the air, resulting in one of the bullets that strayed to hit and eventually killed the teenager.
According to the statement; “Shortly after we received the report of how a teenage girl by name Aghogho was hit by stray bullet that later took her life, we decided to commence an independent investigations into the case to ascertain the true position of what actually transpired at the scene that ill-fated day.
“Our On-the-spot assessment of the scene of the incident revealed that the supremacy tussle between two rival cult groups in the area which had been going on for quite sometimes in Igbudu community and its environs started again that day at about 5;30pm from a beer parlour and later snowballed into a free for all fights among members of the rival cult groups in the area.
“We were made to understand by the residents of the area that the fracas between the cult groups which lasted almost two hours saw the engagement of dangerous weapons like: axe, knives, cutlasses and broken bottles by the cult members all through the period the violent clash lasted and there was no gunshot heard”.