A 15-year old junior secondary student, simply identified as Onoriode, was on Wednesday confirmed dead after drowning during a fishing expedition.
The Nation gathered that Onoriode had joined two of his friends to go fishing at a pond in the Ikpirima quarters of Osubi community, Okpe council area of Delta state on Tuesday.
He was declared missing after he reportedly fell into the pond.
Onoriode and his friends, according to a source, who is conversant with the development, were all from Abgbasa community in Warri South council area of the state
The source, who preferred anonymous, added that the pond, originally a borrow pit, had expanded in recent times as a result to the high volume of rainfalls witnessed in the area, coupled with the activities of sand dredgers who had persistently invaded the pond for sand.
“The boy, simply referred to as Onoriode, came in company of three other children within the age brackets of 13 and 14 to fish at the borrow pit beside the Osubi Airport when the incident occurred on Tuesday.
“The deceased hailed from Agbasa area of Warri in Warri South LGA. They came to the area to fish. The place is very deep because of the dredging activities in the area”, he said.
Another source, a prominent members of the community, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, disclosed that the community had made frantic efforts in the past to stop children from going close to the pool of waters as the depth of the water is quite unimaginable.
According to him: “None of the children from this area dares going close to it”. “You can see that they are all from a distant community”, he concluded.
He further disclosed that incidences of deaths at the pond had become an annual occurrence and called on the state government to do something urgently to channel the water to the existing canals to save more lives being lost.
When reached for confirmation, the Delta Commissioner of Police, Mr Adeyinka Adeleke, said the body of the deceased boy had been recovered on Wednesday evening.
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