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George ONYEJIUWA, Owerri
Irate youths of Umuokwara, Nwaneri, Isuozuaka, community in Njaba Local Council of Imo State, on Tuesday, staged a violent protest following the exhumation of the corpses of a 70-year-old woman, Monica Anupuome and Margret Anupuome her sister in law from a disputed land on which they were interred on September 4, 2019, and dumped them at the Nkwopara Ikpa Market Square.
This was just as the irate youths immediately took the corpses and forced their way into the home of the suspects and laid them inside his living room after the suspects had fled the village.
It was learnt that the exhumation of two corpses was carried out at night by the family who has been disputing the ownership of the land with the Anupuome family.
The youths in anger stormed the homes of those who they suspected to have exhumed the bodies, and razed them to ashes.
Our correspondent learnt that trouble started when about six plots of land in dispute between the deceased and a relation, led to litigation.
It was further learnt that after Monica’s corpse was left in the morgue for four years, and Margaret’s for about three years, as a result of the protracted land dispute, the community finally resolved, after a court order to bury, the corpses on September 4 on the land.
Speaking on behalf of family, Osita Paul Anupueme, of Isioziaka -Umuokwara, Nwaneri, said their anger was based on the fact that the suspects allegedly went to the burial place and exhumed the corpses and displayed them near the market square.
The deceased son, maintained that the family was after the peace of the area, wondering why the suspected persons exhumed his mother’s corpse, days after burial.
Meanwhile, the Imo State correspondents of The Guardian, Charles Ogugbuaja; Daily Sun, George Onyejiuwa, and Nation, Chris Njoku, escaped by the whiskers as the rampaging youths pounced on them, beating them to a pulp while asking them for their identity. All efforts made by the reporters to identify themselves were rebuffed as the youths insisted that the reporters were on clandestine mission.
While Ogugbuaja, who was badly hit refused to part with his phone, the irate youths smashed a bottle on the head of the Sun correspondent, forcing him to sustain a head injury; he was taken to a nearby health centre for treatment.
