Seven pupils crushed to
death as lorry rams into

A woman, her child’s food flask in her hand, was weeping. Another was sobbing and saying: “God, why should it be me? After years of waiting upon you, my child just died this way. God, why me?” At the scene of horror where a truck killed seven pupils in Aba, Abia State yesterday – were biscuits, bags, lunch boxes and trace of blood. It was a black Thursday in Aba, the state’s commercial hub, where a driver of a tipper with registration number Akwa Ibom AA 702 KTA lost control of the vehicle and rammed into a private school, Glorious International Academy on Ovom, off Opobo Road, Ogbor Hill. It was all so sudden. A bang, cries of pupils and shout of adults when all got normal, no fewer than seven pupils lay dead. Twenty others were injured. The desks were stained with blood. The classroom floor was splattered with blood. Sources told The Nation that the pupils were in school today for their end of the year party to mark the end of the academic session ahead of the Christmas break. The pupils, according to a source, mostly pre- nursery. They were already in their classroom with their teachers, having their morning devotion before the accident occurred. An eyewitness, who pleaded not to be named, said: “The driver was coming from Opobo Road and all of a sudden, he veered towards the school fence and we heard a loud bang on the school wall. It was after the loud noise that we began to hear the teachers calling for help and the children crying. “So far, we have been able to rescue some of the pupils. Four pupils died on the spot; three died inside the tricycle that was taking them to the hospital, 20 others sustained bruises and had fractured bones.” Federal Road Safety Corps Officers and policemen from the Ogbor-Hill Division were assisted by sympathisers to tow out the tipper from the class room. Efforts made to get the comments of the school proprietor or teachers of the school proved abortive as they were said to have joined various buses and cars to the hospital where some of the survivors were rushed to for medical treatment. The victims were taken to Living Word Hospital beside the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) on Aba-Ikot Ekpene Road.  An official of the hospital, who did not want his name mentioned, confirmed to our correspondent that 17 pupils were rushed to the