Concerns As Woman Loses 3-Months-Old Pregnancy In Police Custody
A pregnant woman from Umuosiegbo village, Umunya, in Oyi local government area of Anambra State, Mmesoma Odili, is currently experiencing immense sorrow after suffering a miscarriage inside a police cell.
she had been in police detention for eight days and, in the process, lost her three-month-old pregnancy.
It was reported that security operatives at the Zone 13 Police Headquarters, Ukpo, apprehended Mmesoma as they were unable to locate her husband in relation to a land dispute in the vicinity.
A resident of the community, Jude Ikeanyionwu, who disclosed what transpired to journalists, expressed deep concern over the division caused by the dispute and urged the state governor, Chukwuma Soludo, and other influential individuals in the state to intervene before further loss of lives occurs.
“Mmesoma’s husband is a member of the community’s vigilante group and one of those opposed to the illegal attempt to sell our communal land by some of our elders.
“When the men of Zone 13 Police came to arrest those who do not want our land to be sold since we had shared it among the various families and they could not find Mmesoma’s husband, they arrested his pregnant wife.
“For eight days she was in detention and it was during this period that she had a miscarriage and lost her three months pregnancy. The police had to let her go when she was almost dying in detention.
“The situation in our kindred now is that those who want to sell our land by force have been harassing us with police from Abuja, such that all the men in the village no longer sleep in their houses for fear of arrest,” Vanguard quoted Ikeanyionwu saying.
He added: “We have no other land, which was why a decision was taken to share the large expanse with the various families, which has been done. It is, therefore, surprising that my uncle, who was chairman of the kindred, insisted on selling the land when we and our children have no other land to lay hands on.”
