Residents of Igbo Agbowa, Owode, Oluwoye, Olu Odo and Ibefun communities in the Ibeshe, Ikorodu area of Lagos State are abandoning the areas in droves due to the activities of serial rapists and killers.
It was gathered that some residents had gone to stay with relations in other parts of Ikorodu, while others still came in the daytime to trade, but left at night to sleep elsewhere.
PUNCH Reports that despite the protests of women in the area against the killings and rapes, the police had yet to intensify patrols of the communities, while some hoodlums arrested had been freed.
Our correspondent had reported a series of attacks on women in the areas in June and July 2016. Some of the victims included a Ghanaian, Grace Obinna, who was killed; and a 60-year-old woman, Francisca, who was stabbed in the cheek.
Francisca’s 10-year-old daughter, Marvellous, was also injured in the attack in July.
It was however learnt that in the latest attack which occurred on Wednesday, November 9, on Ahamadiyya Estate, Igbo Agbowa, a woman and her two children, sustained injuries inflicted by a rapist.
A pastor in the estate, who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity, said the woman, whose name had yet to be ascertained, was about to follow her children to school at about 9am when the mother and the kids were attacked.
He said, “They are still receiving treatments in a hospital. People are beginning to flee Igbo Agbowa community. After several months of enduring attacks, people are fed up. Women are scared. No one knows whose house is next.”
A landlord in Oluwoye, who gave his name only as Ajayi, said the rapists attacked houses where women and their children stayed alone.
He added that the rapists had a culture of cleaning the private parts of their victims with a handkerchief or stabbing them to death if they resisted.
He said, “There is panic in our area. The rapists usually targeted homes where the men were not around. They would loot property and rape female victims. This does not leave out the elderly.”