Three kids trapped to death

Three children have been found dead in a KIA Sportage 4x4 vehicle with registration number GR 7755 R which was parked at an abandoned auto-workshop at Anyaa, a suburb of Accra.

The children had earlier been reported missing, and after a six-hour search by the police and some volunteers they were found dead in the abandoned vehicle last Wednesday evening.

They were identified as Richard Bonna, Justice Anti, both four, and Ekow Frimpong, two.

Eyewitnesses said they believed the boys had entered the vehicle, apparently to play, but got suffocated when they were unable to open the doors. Meanwhile, the vehicle has tinted windows and so passers-by could not see them.

Justice Anti's mother, Madam Rosaline Adjeiwaa, told the Daily Graphic at her residence that about 10 a.m. last Wednesday she realised that her son was missing.

Adjeiwaa said after searching for him for some time, she met the mothers of the other two who were also anxiously looking for their children.

"We went to lodge a complaint at the Anyaa Police Station after our search had not yielded results," she said.

She said the police immediately mounted a search for the boys, with the assistance of some volunteers, from about 11 a.m. until about 4 p.m. when one of the volunteers found the three boys motionless in the vehicle with the-doors locked.

"When the doors were forced open, we initially thought they were sleeping but after they failed to respond to their names, we realised they were gone," she said in tears.

Adjeiwaa said the Anyaa Police later called the Odorkor Police to convey the dead bodies to the Police Hospital mortuary for autopsy.

Sources at Richard Bonna and Ekow Frimpong's homes indicated that their mothers were siblings.

When contacted, the officer in charge of the Odorkor Police Station, DSP Sadique Osei, confirmed the incident and added that preliminary investigations at the scene did not suggest any foul play, adding that the boys might have suffocated to deaths.

He described the incident as unfortunate and gave the assurance that the police would carry out an intensive investigation into the matter to establish the true cause of their deaths.

Charles Asante, a resident of the area, told the Daily Graphic that the fitting workshop where the vehicle was parked had been abandoned by the owner for some time now and that children in the area liked to play there.

He added that the owner of the shop, who had been ejected from the location some months ago, was out of Accra at the time of the incident.

At the time of our visit, the parents of the other deceased were reported to have accompanied the police and the bodies of the deceased to the mortuary.