Gunmen on Friday broke into a tailoring shop along Uratta Road in Aba, Abia State, and carted away 14 industrial and manual sewing machines, cellphones, pressing irons, stoves and 3800 kva generators.

Other items said to have been stolen from the shop owner, Mrs Favour Elijah, included customers’ clothing materials waiting be sewn, 10 scissors, and other valuables, all put at over N12 million.

It was gathered that the robbers also broke into other property, including a branch of the Deeper Christian Life Church, where they stole musical equipment and other valuables, a provision store, whose owner lost N750,000 worth of goods, as well as the Ekeoha Ward health centre building in Obuda Aba, and forcefully broke and took away iron protectors and some roofing sheets in the centre’s main building.

Narrating her ordeal in the hands of the bandits, Mrs Elijah, was devastated and pained that all her life’s endeavours had been taken away.

She said the pain for the loss was unimaginable. “I don’t know what to say or what to do now. All my life’s endeavours have been taken away just in one sweep. What am I going to tell customers whose belongings have been stolen?” she lamented, while appealing to the government and security operatives to come to her aid by tracking and arresting the bandits.

Speaking in the same vein, another victim, Mrs Doris Chineke, a provisions store operator at No 17 Edo Street, in the same area, said the robbers broke into her shop and carted away goods worth N750,000. Mrs Chineke, lamented that as an aged woman struggling to survive on a daily basis, the hoodlums should have allowed her enjoy the fruits of her labour.

The victims said they have reported the matter to the authorities and were expecting positive response. They also appealed for assistance in what they described as, “in this trying times,” to stand on their feet.

Efforts made to get official response from the police, was yet to yield results at the time of this report. But a senior police source in Aba confided in our correspondent that his office had received reports of the robbery incident. He said they were already piecing together what action to take to apprehend the bandits. (Saturday Sun)

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