A midwife and her husband, who is a trained teacher, are currently in the grips of the Esiama District Police Command in Ellembelle for abandoning a four-year-old special child in a forest ostensibly to die.
According to the assembly member for the Asaasetre-Ebowu Electoral Area, Barnabas Ewureku, the four-year-old baby was handed over to a fetish priest, whose name has been given as Awuah, by the couple after they suspected she was an evil child.
“I went to the farm and on my way back I heard a baby crying. I was scared because the place is a deep forest and there is no way a baby could go there alone. I quickly came home and informed the chiefs for assistance.
“We went there and met a fetish priest who was bold to tell us he left the baby there because she is an evil child. We tried to rescue the baby but this fetish priest relocated her,” he narrated.
The assembly member added that they later arrested the fetish priest and his assistant after several efforts to rescue the young baby failed.
“We arrested and took them to the Police station. Later that day, some police officers accompanied us to the forest including the fetish priest and we found the young girl wrapped in weeds with concoctions all over her.
“She was alive with blood oozing from her nose and other parts of her body. Immediately we rescued her, she died, unfortunately. Later the same day, we arrested her parents,” he added.
Paralegal of Western Region, Jonas Kabutey, indicated that four persons are currently in the grips of the Esiame Police Command and two others are at large.
“These are educated parents (wife is a professional midwife and husband a trained a teacher) who are supposed to know better but they decided to hurt such a young baby. Social Welfare has trained people to take care of such special children and all they had to do was to bring her to our office.
“We have already arranged the four persons including the parents of the baby before the court and they have been remanded. Two others who assisted the fetish priest in committing the crime are at large and we hope they will be arrested soon.”