A tragic incident in Benin City on Wednesday evening led to the death of a two-year-old girl, who was crushed by a commercial driver following a clash with officers of the Edo State Public Safety Response (PSR) Team at Ring Road.

Eewitnesses reported that PSR operatives attempted to seize the steering wheel of the moving vehicle, causing the driver to lose control.

The bus then veered off the road, ramming into a roadside POS kiosk, where the toddler and her mother were standing. The child was killed instantly.

An enraged crowd at the scene attacked the PSR officers before taking them, along with the child’s lifeless body, to a nearby police station.

Human rights activist Kola Edokpayi, who witnessed the incident, condemned the officers’ actions and urged the government to train its personnel on modern law enforcement techniques.

“What happened this evening is heartbreaking. We know how difficult it is for a mother to carry a baby for nine months and give birth, only for carelessness to take the child’s life,” Edokpayi lamented.

He criticized the officers’ methods, saying, “Instead of handling the situation professionally, they resorted to outdated tactics.

Nine days after he was kidnapped, the Catholic Priest of St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Ivukwa, in the Etsako East Local Government Area of Edo State, Rev. Fr. Peter Ekweli, has been released by his abductors.

But the fate of the seminarian who was abducted with him, Peter Andrew, remained unknown.

A viral video on Thursday showed a kidnap victim, surrounded by uniformed men believed to be vigilantes, claiming that he was kidnapped and put in the same location with the priest and seminarian.

The victim said they were all forced to close their eyes, and in the process, they heard a gunshot.