Two children, a boy and a nine-year-old girl, have drowned in floodwaters after a heavy rainfall in Minna, Niger State.
The bodies of the children were discovered in a drainage on Tuesday, July 1, 2025.
It was gathered that residents of the Tunga community initially thought that the flood carried only the girl whose parents are said to hail from Edo State, until the girl’s father was contacted to identify his daughter and discovered that a young male child was also k!lled in the rain floods.
According to Punch , the girl, who was the only daughter among three children of her parents, was sent to the Tunga market (about two kilometres from their residence) to purchase some soup ingredients.
She was accompanied by her elder brother, an 11-year-old boy. They went with an umbrella since the rain had been falling from the early morning hours, although not heavily.
At the time they left the house, the rain had paused momentarily, but there were still signs that the rain could come down heavily.
While they were on their way, the rains came down heavily and in torrents.
Almost immediately, it flooded all the drainage and roads in Tunga, making it impossible for motorists to move.
They had to park and wait for the rains to subside and the floods to recede.
The publication gathered that both children were returning from the market, the girl may have slipped and fallen into the drainage.
It was learnt that as the flood was carrying her away, her brother was shouting to residents in the neighbourhood to help him rescue his sister, who was being swept away by the flood.
The people could not help due to the level the water had reached and the force it carried.
They watched helplessly as the water carried the little girl.
The water kept carrying the girl while the brother went back to their residence to inform their parents about the tragedy.
The father of the girl was later contacted to identify his daughter’s corpse at a tunnel on Mandela Street (more than five kilometers from where the flood carried her), and when he got there, he found the corpse of the little girl and that of another boy who was also killed by the flood.
Spokesman for the Niger State Emergency Management Agency NSEMA, Hussaine Ibrahim, who confirmed the incident on Tuesday night expressed shock over the tragedy and said the agency would visit the girl’s family to find out more details.
“The agency is not aware of the disaster, but my people will visit the home of the girl at Tunga tomorrow to meet with the parents,” he said.
