Truck Crushes Malian Woman, Child

A Foton truck, belonging to a Calabar-based iron manufacturing company, Bau Yau on Tuesday fell on a Malian woman, Madam Kanku Kone and her three children while they were asleep at their 2, Itu Street, Calabar.

The truck laden with iron scrap was snaking its away from 8, Itu Street where it spent the night while it was packed full with scrap metal but the bad and narrow state of the road could not allow it get through easily.

It crashed into the building where Madam Kone and her children were still sleep killing the woman instantly while her three children were rushed to the General Hospital Calabar, where one later died.

Sources said the driver of the truck, Chibuike Ekoma escaped from the scene of the accident leaving the woman and the children under the truck until men of the state fire service came to the scene to move the mangled body of the woman and her children out.

“They have been warned several times by the Ministry of Environment officials not to load scrap in the city but at the outskirts, but they would not take to instructions and each time they come here and the officials come, they offer them bribes and they are allowed to load the scraps, ” Hassan Soula, son of the deceased woman told P.M.NEWS.

According to Hassan whose younger died along with his mother, Bau Yau agents came in with the truck Monday night and loaded it all night with scrap metals and wanted to leave in the early hours of the day to beat the Ministry of Environment officials and police on the way, but the truck fell and crushed the one room apartment in which his mother and other siblings were sleeping.

When P.M.NEWS visited the office of the Chinese firm, owners of the truck and scrap metals at the Free Trade Zone, a Chinese who refused to disclose his name said the truck belonged to the company but was rented out to its agent to convey scrap metals to the company.

The company he said has nothing to do with the death of the 55-year old Malian woman.

“We gave the truck to the man to carry scrap metals and not to kill anybody. It is none of our business,” he said.

The police have not made any arrest.

By Emma Una/ Calabar