3 Orphans Subjected to Abuse by their Grandmother Call Her Out

Orphans, aged 13, 5 and 3 years respectively, whose HIV-positive grandmother tagged witches from a community in Cross River State, revealed the abuses they were subjected to by their grandma.

Narrating their ordeal in a chat with Vanguard, the eldest of the siblings said their grandma conspired with some persons to beat them with red-hot machete to coerce them to confess to witchcraft. She told the media…

“We are not witches, our grandmother made us to confess to what we are not. We dropped out of school in 2016 when our mother died; we also lost our father in 2014.

We do not belong to any witchcraft world. We are normal children; she made us to sell sachet water before we can eat once a day.

She is our grandmother, she normally brings people like Uncle Aniekan to punish us with hot machete and he flogged us with it after it had been heated up in fire.

They will use it to flog us to confess that we were responsible for her sickness, but we are not.

It was out of fear and intimidation that we admitted earlier that we were witches, me and my sisters, Grace and Emem are not witches, we are normal children.”

Principal Counsel to Child Protection Network and Basic Rights Counsel Initiative, BRCI, Barr. James Ibor, who is leading the team prosecuting the kids’ grandmother, disclosed that the woman who was earlier arrested, was later granted bail because she was HIV-positive and was like a walking corpse.

”When we got the call, we thought it was just a mere allegation, but when we probed further, we discovered that the children were near death, so we mobilised and got the police involved and the first suspect that was arrested was their grandmother, who was later granted bail because she was HIV-positive and was like a walking corpse.

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We also discovered that the children have been dehumanised for more than a year and it only got worse two months ago.

The old woman in question has a terminal illness, for which she has refused to continue taking drugs as prescribed and recommended, but she decided to blame her condition on the children.

She was aware of her status and was placed on anti-retroviral drugs, but she stopped taking them and decided to say her children were sucking her blood,” Ibor asserted.

”With the help of one Aniekan, they heat up a machete in fire, and flogged the children’s backs with it, inflicting serious life- threatening injuries on them all in a bid to make them admit they were witches.

But from our findings, the children have nothing to do with their grandmother’s condition, she is only suffering from a terminal disease and if she adheres to the treatment made available by government, which is free, she would bounce back to life.”

Cross River Police Command Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, ASP Irene Ugbo, who confirmed the incident, disclosed that it was under investigation and all the parties involved get what is due to them in line with the law.

Photo credit: Vanguard