Four children from one family die within days in Okpokwu community

Four children from the same family died within three days in the Amufu community of Edumoga, in the Okpokwu Local Government Area of Benue State, according to accounts given by their father and a community leader.

The children were aged 12, seven, five and three. In a recorded interview, their father said they became unwell two to three days after sharing a bottle of soft drink he alleged had been given to them by a relative. He said he took one child to hospital and returned to find another ill; three of the children had died by the following morning and the fourth by midday.

The allegation about the drink has not been tested by any published investigation, and no medical or police finding on the cause of the deaths had been made public at the time of reporting. A community leader, quoted describing the sequence, confirmed the ages and the loss of four children from one household in three days. Rural communities in Benue South are served by health facilities that often lack the laboratory capacity to determine cause of death quickly.