The Eseka Train Derailment which occurred on Friday 21st October has seen rescue efforts discovering a baby alive in the wreckage on Tuesday 25th October after 4 days of the incident. The accident has left over 100 dead and 600 more wounded.
The baby is currently at the Yaounde Center for Children in Distress. Reports say Cameroonians have been pouring into the center to greet the baby. It is believed that the mother of the child died in the crash.
“It was amazing to see that one soldier wounded had in his hands a little baby with mud everywhere,” Serge Mandoumbi, a Cameroon presidential guard official told VOA (Voice of Africa). ” And also we saw that she had blood and immediately we asked a nurse to go to examine, to look at the baby if something could be done.”
The child was brought in alongside another infant survivor, an eight-month-old baby. That baby’s mother was killed in the accident. But witnesses said she had tossed her baby out the WINDOW of the train car before it flipped- VOA reports
Cameroun authorities are hunting for relatives of the two babies. Cameroon’s Minister of Social Affairs Pauline Irene Nguene said they will be given appropriate medical care while investigations continue. “Of course we will not give them the babies until we are sure that they are the real parents,” she said.
Though some have tried to blame the incident on the overloaded train, Bollore, the train operator’s told Reuters Tuesday the train was moving at “an abnormally high speed” when it went off the tracks.
God is still saying something.