Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Two 100 level students of the Benue State University (BSU), Makurdi have reportedly drowned in River Benue.
The deceased students, a boy and a girl whose names were given as Adakole Christopher and Mson Emmanuella were said to have gone with some friends to play football by the river side behind the school when the incident happened.
Christopher, it was gathered, was from the Computer Science Department while Emmanuella was from the College of Health Sciences in the same school.
According to reports, the incident happened on Friday at about 6pm beside BSU water works, an area close to the river side that looks like a beach.
The students were said to have visited the area alongside three other students of the school, all friends to play football and enjoy the cool weather at the river side without notifying the school management through the security unit.
One of the five students who went on that fateful voyage said after they were done playing football, they all decided to swim adding that while they were at it, a strong current started pulling all of them deeper into the river.
He said three of them managed to swim back to shore, but the two could not make it back, as they got drowned despite frantic efforts to rescue them.
Our source stated that when they couldn’t rescue their friends, they ran as fast as they could back to campus and raised alarm which further attracted other people as well as the security unit of the institution to the scene.
The University management through the security unit, it was learnt, immediately launched a search and rescue operation to find the two missing students.
Also, the Marine Police as well as divers also joined in the search and rescue operation which lasted several hours, in fact, late into the night on Friday without any success.
However, by Saturday Afternoon, remains of one of the victims, Christopher was found floating on the river while search was still on to find the other student at the time of this report.
Our correspondent gathered that the remains of the deceased student was immediately buried while sympathizer shave continues to besiege his family house in Makurdi to condole with the family.