Tragedy and Miracle: Five-Year-Old Dies, Friend Survives Flood in Calabar

The death of five-year-old Mathias in the floodwaters of Ekorinim 1, Calabar Municipality, has intensified public outrage over chronic infrastructural neglect in the Community. The tragic incident, triggered by heavy rainfall penultimate Sunday, has shifted focus from the children’s play to deeper systemic failures that residents say have repeatedly endangered lives.

Mathias and another boy, Covenant, were swept away while playing near a dangerously flooded drainage channel. The strong current dragged them into a 400-metre-long gutter that empties into a swamp off Peterson Street. Their play on a sliced plantain trunk turned into a frantic rescue that shook the neighbourhood.

Local resident Abam Bassey, known as Apostle Paul, became an unexpected hero when he leapt into the flood after panicked youths rushed to his barbershop.

“The current was strong, but I didn’t stop,” he said. “Finding Covenant alive was a miracle.”

Tragically, hope faded for Mathias, who was found almost an hour later trapped under plantain logs and debris beneath a concrete slab. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Covenant’s mother, Favour Effiong, who revealed her son had survived a similar incident five years ago, expressed deep gratitude to Bassey while appealing to the government for urgent action.

“Our roads and drainage are death traps,” she said. “Children shouldn’t die because a gutter wasn’t fixed.”

Community leader Ene Okon described the circumstances as “tragic and spiritually worrying,” attributing the disaster to poor supervision but stressing that infrastructural failure played the larger role.

Residents blame years of neglect, citing dilapidated roads, inadequate drainage, and recurring flooding. They are demanding immediate intervention from the Cross River State Government and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

“How many more children must be swept away before the Government acts?” one resident asked bitterly.

Mathias’ family has taken his remains to Ito in Odukpani Local Council for burial.

As the community mourns, their message is clear: Ekorinim’s drainage crisis is not just an inconvenience—it is claiming lives.