Police Raid Exposes Baby Trafficking Ring in Port Harcourt Hospital
Operatives of the Force Intelligence Department stormed a private hospital in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on June 12 after receiving intelligence about criminal activities at the facility. The police uncovered a scheme where medical personnel allegedly stole live babies from new mothers and presented embalmed dead infants as their own.
Mothers Raised Suspicions
According to police reports, several mothers had come forward expressing doubts about the hospital's claims that their newborns had died during childbirth. This prompted the police to deploy undercover officers, who successfully exposed the crime.
During the raid, officers discovered a bucket containing an embalmed baby in the office of the medical director, 66-year-old Elizabeth Obot. Police allege that this dead child was used to deceive mothers into believing their babies had died, while the live infants were trafficked.
Dead Baby Rented to Trafficking Networks
Investigations revealed that the embalmed dead baby was also rented to other trafficking networks or to women who wanted to use a dead child to deceive their families about a fake pregnancy. Obot, who lacks a license to operate, confessed to the scheme.
In her statement, Obot said: “In 2020, one of those women who had issues with the police came and asked if I had a dead child, and at the time, I had one. So I told her, she collected it and gave me N10,000. I can charge the person who wants to buy the child N3m. If the person pays, the social mother will get her N2.5m, while the difference is what I use for logistics.”
How the Dead Baby Was Obtained
Obot explained that the dead child was a product of a miscarriage. The husband was not around, and when contacted, he agreed to have the baby disposed of. Obot charged him a fee, but instead of disposing of the body, she kept it for her illegal activities.
She claimed the dead baby was used to help women with fake pregnancies who were under pressure from their partners to produce a child. These women would stage a fake pregnancy, pretend to lose the baby, and present the dead child to their partners. Obot denied any wrongdoing, asserting that she was only helping desperate women and that those who sold their babies did so voluntarily.
Untrained Nurse Arrested
Another suspect, Uffiong Ubong Anthony, revealed that she is not a professional nurse but learned to serve as an auxiliary nurse by observing nurses in a private hospital. She admitted to working as an untrained nurse for 21 years.
Police Appeal for Victims to Come Forward
The police have called on anyone who experienced a stillbirth at the facility to come forward to assist with the investigation. They advised women to always have a relative present in the delivery ward to monitor their child after birth and to ensure that delivery wards have window protectors, as investigations have shown that wards without windows facilitate baby theft.
