Breastfeeding Mother Slumps, Dies In Benue IDP Camp

A 35-year-old mother of six whose husband, Hembadoon Tarhemba, was killed by gunmen, and taking refuge at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp located at Abagena, Benue State, has slumped and died.

The immediate-past woman leader of the camp, Esther Oota, in a telephone conversation narrated that Hembadoon, a lactating mother of under one-year-old twins, went to fetch firewood from a nearby bush alongside two other women to prepare breakfast for her children when the incident occurred.

The deceased was in the process of breaking the firewood when she slumped and all efforts to revive her by some members of the camp who rushed to the scene proved abortive.

Esther lamented that the deceased widow left the house in the morning to enable her to collect firewoods to come back early and cook for her children, but did not return alive as she desired.

The former woman leader told our correspondent that the corpse was still lying in the morgue while the twins were left with the deceased’s little children and an IDP foster mother in the camp who themselves were struggling to feed.

The mother had named one of the twins, a boy, Alia and the girl, Mimidoo, for giving birth to them on the day the state’s governor, Hyacinth Alia, was sworn in.