Roberta Ayeley Addy, an umbrella seller who hawks at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle in Accra, got killed together with her one year old daughter during last Wednesday’s floods and her family is still searching for her corpse for burial.
Roberta’s sister, Asabea, was selling umbrellas with her in the drizzle when it suddenly turned into a storm, trapping them at the GOIL fuel station just before the explosion and inferno. Asabea escaped death narrowly and has narrated the tragic happenings to NEWS-ONE in an interview that saw her weeping throughout.
Can you confirm your sister is the dead woman with a baby on her in that popular picture now gone viral?
No. My sister and her baby died a worse death than drowning. My sister’s baby is just one year old and a girl. The baby in the photo looks like a boy and the woman is not wearing the clothes my sister wore when I left her in the shop at the GOIL station. See her photo here. You can tell the difference.
Why did you leave her in the shop at GOIL?
The rains got very heavy. My sister was carrying her baby on her back and we were all in the rain but the baby was feeling very cold and crying and we were starting to drown so we all rushed into the GOIL station. But the shop attendant said the manager would be angry and that we were too many. We pleaded with her that the baby was feeling very cold so she should have mercy. But I was forced to move out.
But I left the place completely because I could not stand the scent of the fuel in the water. It was very strong and there was nothing I could use to cover my nose so I left and together with others we passed through the water to climb the heap of sand used in building the new over pass. Even there we were falling over and into the water and because the fuel had mixed with the water, we had become slippery and it was difficult to hold someone who was falling back into the water.
Then the lights went off and not long after, we heard the explosion from somewhere and the fire started burning and was fast spreading in the water and coming our direction. At that point, I got scared and thought of Ayeley and her baby.
I managed to climb to the top and fell over the other side. We were many and I blacked out so I couldn’t remember anything until I felt someone was pointing a torchlight into my face and the person carried me to safety. I was weak but decided to go and look for my sister and her baby. When I got there the whole place had burnt down. My sister was inside the shop when I left her. Ayeley could not have gone out with her baby into the cold rain. I am sure she got burnt to death with the baby.
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