Boy Suffers Ruptured Intestines After Father's Brutality (Photos)

Somtochukwu Ajebughobi on his sick bed and his father 

While children’s birthdays are supposed to be filled with fun, happiness and love from their parents, for 13-year-old Somtochukwu Ajebughobi, November 2, 2015, his birthday, was the day his father nearly killed him.



That day, Somtochukwu was rushed to the Reginal Mundi Catholic Hospital, Mushin Lagos, where doctors gave a frightening diagnosis. He had sustained an injury that ruptured his intestine. This internal injury along with old scars and fresh injuries on the boy’s body reportedly raised the suspicion of the doctor, who attended to the boy.

Saturday Punch learnt when the boy was asked how he sustained the injury, he said he got the injury from school, an answer, which would turn out to be what his parents had coached him to say.

The doctor, who said he instantly suspected it was a case of child abuse, referred the child for further tests apart from the initial scan, which had shown the internal injuries. But the parents allegedly came back to the hospital without carrying out the second test.

When the angry doctor insisted they had to present a police report if they refused to say the truth about what happened to the boy, they opened up.

Somtochukwu’s mother, Priscilla, then told the doctor that the boy was kicked in the stomach when her husband, Sunny, was beating him brutally. The boy was later referred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, for further treatment.

A referral letter signed by one Dr. Okojie, indicated the boy suffered “generalised body pains with abdominal swelling and hyperaemia” following the beating.

The letter stated further that an assessment of domestic abuse was made, and that an abdominal ultrasound revealed “free peritoneal fluid ascites, ruptured viscus.”

In agony, Somtochukwu explained on his hospital bed that his father descended on him simply because, he decided to visit his aunt, whom his father had warned him and his older siblings never to visit