Awka: 7 Dead As Trailer Rams Into Cars At Checkpoint

Joe Chukwudi, Awka [ureports], May 18 2010 02:04am At east seven person including a mobile police officer, a nursing mother and her baby and drivers died Monday night at about 8:30 pm when a trailer lorry conveying a container rammed into a car at a check point in Awka.

The incident which was said to have left the victims instantly dead was said to have been caused by a checkpoint mounted by mobile police officers at the Enugu-Onitsha express way, near Parktonian Hotel.

Eye witnesses told our correspondent that a Nissan Sunny car with Lagos registration number BV 589 APP was conveying a nursing mother and her baby to a hospital when police officers on duty stopped them for a routine check, only for the truck to speedily run into them, mangling the car beyond recognition and killing all of its occupant.

One mobile police officer who was attending to the Nissan car was not as lucky as his colleagues who ran away as he was also killed by the truck.

Ukpakareports.com was however not able to identify what goods the trailer which has the registration number XN 754 SLR, Lagos was carrying, or where it was headed.

Two other cars were also destroyed in the wake of the accident; a Peugeot 505 car whose registration number was not ascertained because of the enormity of the damage and a Hillux van with plate number AN 33 A03, belonging to the Anambra State government.

Ukpakareports.com reports that trouble was averted on Monday night immediately after the incident as some youths who after witnessing the incident started demonstrating against the police for stubbornly blocking the road despite on going construction on one lane which leaves commuters with just one lane.

They set bonfire around the UNIZIK temporary site junction chanting protest songs until police officers who were already sober with loosing a colleague started shooting sporadically into the air and also throwing canisters of teargas.

Phone calls to the Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Emeka Chukwuemeka for confirmation was however not received, just as our correspondent learnt that the deceased have been deposited in an undisclosed mortuary.