Suspected pirates have attacked a marine speed boat carrying nine passengers from Swali waterfront in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State to Koluama 1 in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area, killing a five-year-old, Comfort Isegu.
The little girl, who was among the two children carried by their mother, Lovina Isegu, for the journey, met her untimely death when the pirates shot at the boat.
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The driver was meandering away, upon sighting the pirates.
The State Chairman of the Maritime Workers Union, Comrade Ogoniba Ipigansi, while confirming the incident in a statement obtained by newsmen in Yenagoa, said the boat’s driver, Mr Okilo Orubiko, also got shot in the process.
According to Ipigansi, Mr Orubiko sustained a severe degree of injury resulting from the bullet, but he managed to take the boat and the passengers to Koluama 1 successfully, which was not far from where the incident happened.
Mr Ipigansi, who said the driver had been taken to Yenagoa for treatment, called on the Bayelsa State and federal governments to take serious, the issue of security of the lives and property of drivers and passengers plying the waterways in the state.
The police spokesman in Bayelsa State, SP Asinim Butswat, said the police command was yet to receive any information about the attack.
