Weija boat accident: 13-year-old survivor still battling trauma after 5 months

It has emerged that five months after a boat capsized and killed nine pupils at Weija-Gbawe, the only survivor 13-year-old Enyonam Ekpe is still struggling to forget the incident and her friends who perished.

Enyonam, who lost her little brother through the accident has not been able to move on as she mentions the names of the drowning victims whenever she is given an exercise to do in school.

This, Juliana Bafo, a teacher at Secretary Service Awareness and Support Organisation, an NGO school where Enyonam schools, said has had a great toll on her academics and relationships in school

“Since the incident happened, when you give her work to do, she will not do it but will be mentioning the names of those who passed on,” Juliana said.

The teacher, however, encouraged that getting psychological assistance for Enyonam and other victims of the accident will help a great deal.

This update was reported by TV3's Joseph Armstrong.

Nine pupils were reported to have died by drowning on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, after they were ferrying from the Fanaa community to Kelee after school.

According to the survivor, Enyonam Ekpe’s account, a young boy asked them to join his boat while they had challenges in getting one.

She added that when she joined her colleagues, she informed the boat rider he had over-packed them and suggested he takes some of them first and return for the rest but he refused.

She said while they were on the river, the boat subsided killing her colleagues and her kid brother.

“The accident occurred at 5:40 p.m. Yesterday when we were coming home, we didn’t get a boat to pick us but fortunately, we found a young boy on one and told him to pick us up. When he picked us up, I told him we were many on the boat and suggested that he drops some of us and take a fewer number.

“When I told him, he ignored me and said the boat would go. Just when we were going the boat turned and my kid brother fell and went missing but I held on to the boat until a man came to assist me,” she recounted.

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