The search that was intensified for the body of a little 5-year-old girl identified as Melody, a resident of Akpu Road, Ogbor-Hill, Aba, who was swept off by flood on Saturday, 27th of June, 2026, while playing with her 7-year-old brother has failed.
Our correspondent who monitored the situation discovered that most of the major roads around the Aba River, like Ngwa Road, Akpu Road, Ovom Street, Pepples Road and Emologu Road, have dangerous open drainages that collect stormwater from the Ogbor Hill axis to the Aba River.
As gathered, it was one of these open drainages that Melody fell into after the downpour on Saturday while playing with her brother on Saturday, when the drainage was still collecting heavy floodwater down to the Aba River.
Melody’s mother, Madam Charity, who could barely say her surname, told our correspondent that she went to the good morning market at the Orji Uzor-Kalu Bridge, near the Aba mega abattoir, to sell her goods when she was informed that her attention was needed at home.
According to her, she insisted that those calling her should wait as she had some of her debtors she needed to collect money from before they went home because tomorrow was Sunday and there would be nobody at the market.
She said that it was when she got to her house that she learnt of what happened to her daughter and ever since then, her life has not been the same.
Eyewitnesses said that immediately after the tragedy happened, they contacted the Ogbor village people in charge of the river, and they were told to return on Sunday to perform the necessary traditional ritual to get a search party that will retrieve her body and prepare her for burial.
The eyewitness also said that the mission was not successful on Sunday but was rescheduled on Monday, 29th June, 2026, for which they were told a superstitious story that if discovered, she must be buried beside the riverside or the family would lose more of their children.
DrumAfricanews was on the ground at the venue of the ritual in the midday of Monday, 29th June, 2026, as the traditional priest and his entourage arrived, did their things, and constructed an emergency rescue canoe using banana stems tied together, accompanied by strong swimmers from the community who headed to a place they said the water usually drops any heavy thing it carries along.
As of when filling this report, the search team has returned with a disappointing new which many sympathisers, friends and family members of late Melody who waited anxiously at the bank of the Aba River were not expecting.
According to them, they were expecting her corpse to be returned for burial at the riverbank by the search team, but the news of her corpse missing at the river sent a devastating blow to everyone at the river bank.
DrumAfricanews gathered that the search will continue from tomorrow as downpour in Aba in the afternoon of Monday, 29th June 2026, disrupted the search and got it halted earlier than scheduled.
