Evelyn Atemkeng
By PANA
Lagos, Nigeria – A 42-year-old Cameroonian woman, Evelyn Atemkeng, has been arrested in Nigeria’s southern city of Calabar for allegedly buying a three-day-old baby for 1.2 million naira (US$7,345), the local Vanguard newspaper reported Friday.
The paper reported that the woman, who was accompanied by her 70-year-old mother, was arrested on Wednesday.
She was said to have bought the baby boy from a matron of a clinic in Nigeria’s oil-rich Delta State.
Vanguard quoted the Commander of the Cross River State Immigration Command, Mr Samuel Ichoi, who ordered the arrest, as saying that his men accosted the lady while boarding a ship to Cameroon and after interrogation, she confessed that she bought the baby.
“The lady came from Cameroon (last) Friday without any sign of pregnancy but (on Wednesday) she was found to be carrying a baby and when my men examined her there were no signs that she just gave birth, so she and the baby were apprehended,” Ichoi said.
But the paper quoted the woman, who claimed to be a teacher in the North-West region of Cameroon, as saying she gave birth to the baby and that the 1.2 million naira she paid into the account of the matron was for delivery and the herbs she gave to her to aid delivery.
“I am married and my husband is in Cameroon but there is nobody to take care of me in Cameroon, that was why I came to Nigeria to deliver,” she was quoted as saying.
The Anti Human Trafficking Officer of the Nigeria Immigration Service at the Calabar Port, Mrs Agbor Ojong Ogar, said she took time to examine the woman and there were no signs that she just gave birth.
“The woman passed here on Friday, she left on Saturday and returned to Calabar on Tuesday and was heading back to Cameron with a baby and when we examined her she does not have any sign of having given birth recently,” Ogar said.
