A father identified as Mr Alex Ajissi has abandoned his 3 year old daughter, Ozillia Alex-Ajissi, who got severely burnt in a kerosene explosion that claimed the life of her mother and brother at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH)

A Good Samaritan, Mrs. Theresa Etido-Umoren made her situation public after she noticed her while visiting her relation in the Intensive Care Unit of the UCTH.

Her outcry attracted the attention of members of the Calabar-Municipal branch of the National Association of Seadogs (NAS), which intervened with a donation of N20, 000 and a follow up of another N50, 000 yesterday.

According to Mrs Etido-Umoren, the little girl's dad who is from Benin Republic stopped visiting the girl since two months. She urged members of the public to support the victim in order to complete the remaining surgeries.

Etido-Umoren said,

“I noticed her when I went to the ICU to visit my cousin who later died. I noticed this little girl, Ozillia, and I made inquiries about her. In the course of my inquiries I found out that nobody was caring for her. The hospital staff had taken her like their project. I had to go and see the head of Anaesthesia department and told her what I could do and they gave the go-ahead. The staff at the Anaesthesia department had taken up the responsibility of caring for her when they discovered that her father had stopped coming to see her. The child had been in the hospital for about two months without the father. The child’s mother and brother had died in the fire incident. So, I had to reach out to people and the first donation came from Seadogs. From what I understand, the father is from Benin Republic and the mother was from Akwa Ibom State but they were not legally married before this incident. In addition to the grief of losing his family, he was made to marry the corpse of the mother before the burial.”

The Head of Department of Anaesthesia, Prof. Stella Eguma, who manages the ICU, said the three-year-old girl had just undergone her first major surgery.

She said,

“We have been taking care of her for some time now, while public spirited human beings like you have just stepped in now. She just had the first surgery. She will need a lot of grafting because the skin was not enough. It is going to be a long recovery process and we are happy that she is responding.”

According to the President of the Calabar Municipal branch of NAS, Mr. John Nya, they felt touched by the development and had to intervene immediately.

“This matter was brought to our attention just three days ago and we instantly swung into action by sending in N20, 000 through the lady that brought up the matter. We have again brought another N50, 000 and it will not stop there. In fact, in the next two days we would have given N100, 000 for a start. The situation of this little Ozillia is very traumatic. We will drum support for her treatment. It is a worthy cause. We, as an organization, have always identified with the less privileged and we will continue to do that within our resources,” he said.