May 4, 2025 was a black Sunday for residents of Agyaragu community of Obi Local Government Area, Nasarawa State. It was the fateful day that five children aged between four and seven years and belonging to three different parents got missing in mysterious circumstances only to be found dead in a vehicle that had been abandoned for more than 10 years.

The affected families were those of Mrs Bridget Iormagh, Mrs Ifeoma Mnaji and Mrs Ukeria Onah, staying in different compounds in the same neighbourhood. While 49 years old Iormagh lost her only daughter, five-year-old Eunice, Mnaji, whose husband died only recently lost her only two daughters seven-year-old Mesoma and four-year-old Chidinma, and Onah also lost her two daughters Kamsi (5) and Soma (3).

Looking frail and fatigued, Mrs Mnaji betrayed emotions as she spoke with our correspondent who visited the community to get first hand information about the circumstances surrounding the death of the five children.

Flanked by three women on whose shoulders she leaned, she barely trudged from the living room to the parlour, having just returned from the hospital where she was resuscitated from the shock of her daughters’ death. She sank into a cushion chair, obviously meditating on the death of her husband seven months ago and now those of her only two children.

On hand to comfort her were relations and friends when our correspondent, accompanied by some elders of the community, got to the house.

In a brief chat with our correspondent, the distraught widow explained that she was yet to recover from her husband’s death seven months earlier only for her two children to join and leave her lonely.

She said: “I cannot tell what could have happened. I went to the church with the children and we came back together.

“I had planned to go to Lafia and greet my husband’s people who had assisted me in taking his corpse to the village for burial, because I had not gone to see them since then.

“So, when I was about to go, the children came and said they wanted to eat, and I gave them rice.

“In fact, the five of them were together and they ate together.

“When they finished eating, they said Mum, give us water, and I gave them water.

“I then told them that I would rush to Lafia and return immediately.

“I asked them to go to the house of Mummy Kamsi (an Igbo woman in the next compound who also lost her two daughters).

“My daughters said they wanted to play here in the compound but I insisted that if they wanted to play, they should go to Mummy Kamsi’s house and paly.

“But my daughter said when they were done playing here, they would go there. They then bid me goodbye and said buy ‘awala’ for us when coming back. I said okay and left.

“When I was coming back around 3pm, I saw people standing in my compound, saying the mother of the children is back, and I was wondering what could have happened.

“I was thinking they probably committed an offence, so I asked what happened, and they said they had been searching for my children.

“I said my children? But l left them here. So, we started looking for them.

“We hired an ‘okada’ (motorcycle), searching everywhere in Agyaragu community, including the market, but nobody claimed to have seen them.

“I came back, rushed to the church and told God that wherever my children were, He should please release them to me.

“So I came back home as my husband’s people quickly came down from Lafia, because I had called to tell them what happened.

“The Tiv woman (Iormagh, who stays in the next compound) also came looking for her daughter, insisting that I should open my door so they could check.

“She said since they were playing together, they might be sleeping inside. But I said no, because I had locked my door before going out. But she insisted and I opened, but the children were not there.

“As we were coming out of the room, a neighbour, who stays in same compound with us and runs a medicine store by the roadside went straight to the car and shouted, ‘Jesus, see them here in the car!’

“They rushed to open the car and started bringing them out. All the five children were dead.”

The distraught mother said she did not want to see her children’s bodies, so she headed straight to the church to cry her heart out.

Mnaji said: “I didn’t want to see them. I went straight to the church and started crying.

“I don’t normally leave my children at home, because wherever I went, I used to go with them.

“I hardly left them behind, but because I was in a hurry that day to go and greet my husband people, I wanted to go and come back as fast as possible to prepare them for school resumption the following day.

“My children didn’t normally play around the car. It has been parked there for so many years.

“My question is how did they open the car? The rust alone should make the car doors too strong for the small children to open.

“I know that the heat in the car can affect them because it is parked in the sun. But how can the small children open a long abandoned car with rust? That is what is killing me.

“The doors must have become very strong for them to open, and all the five of them packed themselves inside. How?”

Bursting into tears, the distraught widow said: “They are the only children I have. I lost my husband about seven months ago. They are the only two children I have.

“As you are seeing me now, no husband, no children, it is only me and my God. I asked God, why can’t you take me so that I will rest?

“My husband that died is better off, because he didn’t experience this.

“I know what I am passing through. My husband died, they buried him. Just seven months after, I will carry my only daughters to the village to bury them.”

Mnaji said before setting out on her trip to Lafia to greet her in-laws, her daughters had bid her goidbye and asked her to buy ‘awala’ for them when coming back, not knowing she would never see them again.

“God, you should have taken my life so that I can meet my husband. You should leave the children. Why taking them away leaving me lonely?” she queried.

In the next compound, Mrs Onah, who also lost two of her daughters, wept bitterly as she narrated her experience.

She said: “We went to the church in the morning and came back. After eating, I left the children at home to attend a women’s meeting and left them with my sister.

“Mrs Ifeoma Mnaji had earlier before going to Lafia to greet her husband’s people told me that she would want her children to stay in my house together with my children

“When she was going to Lafia, she came to my house to inform me.

“I asked her where were the children, and she said they were playing in the compound but she had asked them to come over. I said okay.

“When I came back from the meeting, I didn’t see them, so I started looking for them.

“We went round Agyaragu community but did not see them. It was in the process of looking for them that one man, we call him Doctor, he runs a Chemist, he came and opened the door of the abandoned vehicle and we discovered the children.”

Mrs Onah said she had three children all together, one boy and two girls, but the two girls died.

“My life is ruined and there is no hope for me again to bear children. I’m not young again. My life will never be the same again,” she said, bursting into tears.

In the next compound where Mrs Bridget Iormagh also lost her only granddaughter, five-year-old Eunice Shapera, having previously lost all her biological children and decided to bring Eunice to stay with her, she narrated her experience as follows: “What happen is that, on Sunday 4th May, 2025, I went to the church with my daughter. When we came back, I went out briefly to buy something by the roadside.

“When I came back, I did not see my daughter again. Her popular name is Bose, but her name is Eunice Shapera. She was five years old.

“So, when I could not find her, we decided to go round Agyaragu community area on a motorbike, looking for her alongside the other two women staying very close to my compound, whose children too were missing.

“We could not find them, so I personally came back to one of the Igbo women Mrs Ifeoma Mnaji’s compound and asked her to open her room so that we could check inside.

“Since they were playing together with her children, may be they fell asleep inside her room, because it was in the afternoon and they had finished eating after church service. But she insisted that she locked her door and went out with the key, so the children could not be in her room.

“We insisted, and in the process of opening her door, one Igbo man who stays in the same compound with Mrs Ifeoma Mnaji, we popularly call him Doctor, he owns a chemist outside the compound, he was the one who went straight to the abandoned vehicle in the compound and forcibly opened the door and said see the children here.

“Then I saw my Bose and the other four children dead inside the car.

“The doctor, who owns a Chemist and stays in the same compound, had earlier assisted the three women in going round the community looking for the children before he later discovered them in the car.

“My daughter didn’t normally go into the compound where the abandoned vehicle is parked, because there are dogs there and she is always afraid.

“I don’t know how God designed it that day that she joined the children in playing in the compound. She was always at my doorstep and hardly went out to join other children in playing

“Eunice Shapera was actually not my biological daughter; she was my granddaughter. I lost all my biological children in the past and decided to bring Eunice to stay with me so that life would not be lonely for me. Again, God has taken her away from me.”

The police have since commenced investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the five children, and a lot of arrests have been made.

Among those arrested were the owner of the house and the owner of the car. They were being detained by the police. The deceased children were yet to be buried at press time.

Nation