Five children drown as canoe capsizes in Kaduna

    
There was confusion in Hanya Danbushiya, Kaduna North Local Government Area, on Tuesday following the drowning of  five children  when their canoe capsized in River Kaduna.

The children, who were all canoe peddlers, were said to be returning to the river bank to pick other passengers in the early hours of  Tuesday.

 It was gathered that residents of the village immediately organised a search party to look for the bodies of the children.

As of the time of filing this report, three out of the five bodies had been recovered.

Aminu Ibrahim,  leader of the search party,  gave the names of the  victims as Aliyu Mohammed, 13; Shehu Ismaila 13; Ibrahim Ladan 14; and  his brother, Musa Ladan, 15, and Mustapha Hamad, 15.

Ibahim said, “We know that these boys were very good canoe paddlers and are trusted  by those who use canoe as a means of transport. They left early with  full passengers and on their way coming, from what we learnt, the canoe  hit an object in the river and then capsized.”

On his part,  the Village Head of Doka in Danbushiya, Alhaji Musa Liman, described the incident as unfortunate.

He expressed disappointment over the response by the  state Fire Service, who failed to respond to the villager’s distress call when contacted.

The bodies of the deceased had been buried at the Danbushiya cemetery according to Islamic rites.