The leaders of Okuama community in Delta state have requested the army to return the bodies of the villagers who were killed during the tragic events on March 14, when 17 military personnel were also killed.
These leaders explained that the entire community was forced to flee on March 14 due to the violence, which began with soldiers attacking and killing some residents, followed by gunmen who killed both soldiers and villagers near the waterside.
They added that they were unable to account for their deceased members because they had to leave the community abruptly and the military took control of the town, preventing them from accessing their homeland.
The leaders claimed that while the Army denied them the chance to recover and bury their dead, they had managed to retrieve and bury their fallen soldiers. This allegation remains unconfirmed.
One of the community leaders in an interview with Vanguard on Saturday said, “For the army to investigate the killing of their soldiers is not wrong, but to go hard on a whole community and other places is oppression; it is no longer investigation again, but a setup and a plan to wipe out all the Urhobo communities in that riverine.
“Okuama does not have any weapon buried in the ground, there is nothing of such. The caterpillars they brought were for them to bulldoze the buildings down and bury the people they had killed.”
The army has not addressed the issue of the villagers’ bodies since they initiated a search operation in Okuama following the events of March 14.
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