There was uncontrollable wailing at the Nsamanpom Cemetery at Ashaley Botwe in Accra Friday, when the bodies of the four children who were found dead in a drain in the community recently were laid to rest.
Family members, schoolchildren and sympathisers who gathered at the cemetery could not hold their tears and there was spontaneous wailing and crying to express their grief over the lost children.
Some of the relatives and friends of the deceased threw themselves on the ground, with others seen trying to console the family members.
Last Sunday, residents of Ashaley Botwe Lakeside woke up to see the bodies of the four children floating in a drain.
The children, who were believed to have drowned, were Angel Agbenya, nine; Kwabena Badu, 10; Richmond Armah, 11, and Frederick Aboagye, 10.
They were reported missing on Saturday afternoon when they failed to return home after going to play in the vicinity.
Although the Adenta Lakeside Police had intensified their investigations to ascertain the circumstances that led to the death of the four children, it was on the lips of some people who went to the cemetery that the children might have died as a result of their inability to swim out of the five-foot drain.
When graphic.com.gh got to the cemetery at 8: 30 a.m., friends and relatives of the deceased were seen standing in groups, pondering over what might have really caused the children’s death.
While some of them were of the view that the children might have died because of their inability to swim through the drain, others linked their death to unnatural causes.
Some of the schools whose pupils showed up at the cemetery were the Mighty Rock School, Last Stop Preparatory School and All For Christ International School, where the four children had been pupils.
In an interview, Godwin Amewuho, a classmate of Aboagye’s, said the death of their mates had brought academic activities in the school to a halt.
He said Aboagye had been a generous and humble person, stressing that he always tried to assist the needy just to see them smile.
“Even though he had little, Aboagye tried to support those who had nothing, an attribute I picked from him,’’ Amewuho said.
Aboagye’s death, according to Amewuho, had created a big vacuum in the lives of all his friends.
Aboagye’s class teacher, Mr Dickson Asante, described him as a disciplined and humble child, adding that his ability to adapt to the environment in which he found himself easily made him one of the best students Mighty Rock School had received.
The Adentan Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Madam Nudyl Kakra Van Lare, who was also at the cemetery, explained that the drain had been constructed to reduce the flood situation that occurred at Ashaley Botwe Japan Motors during the rainy season.
According to her, most of the children saw the drain as a playground where they went to fish whenever it rained.
“Whatever the reason the four children went to that place, I cannot tell. It is possible they had gone there to play,’’ she said.
Madam Van Lare called on parents to advise their children on the places they were not meant to use as a playgrounds and promised the deceased families of the continuous support of the family.
Source: Daily Graphic
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