Narrow escape: S*x worker narrates near-death ordeal

Blessing Okorite, Port Harcourt

Panic has gripped both prostitutes and residents of Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, over incessant killing and dumping of suspected s*x workers by their supposed clients in hotels in the city.

The ladies of thenight have become increasingly endangered, as they appear to be targets of evil men whose motives are yet to be ascertained.

In one of the latest assaults, one of the commercial s*x workers has narrated her narrow escape. The s*x worker was lucky to survive the attack on her life by her patron, who left her for dead after attempting to strangulate her.

The 23-year-old victim in a brothel on Niger Street, narrowly escaped being killed by her client in a hotel room on Bende Street and has only God to thank for saving her life.

Investigation has it that the hotel where the s*x worker escaped strangulation belongs to a native and prominent personality in the state.

The mother of a 3-year-old child, who disclosed her name as Benita and a native of Akpabuyo in Cross River State, told our correspondent that her client raped her thrice before strangling her with a cloth same Sunday night that the killed s*x worker, Patience, was also hired.

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Benita further disclosed that her client tied her on a chair naked, sealed her mouth with rubber tape and increased the sound volume of the room television to avoid suspicion, as she was shouting for help. She said the client strangled her on the neck, took all her belongings, including her mobile phone and locked her in the room, thinking that she was dead.

She narrated that she went into prostitution as a result of hardship, adding that her father abandoned her and her siblings after her mother died.

Benita who spoke while in  the custody and care of security personnel, narrated her ordeal: “On Sunday, August 18, he hired me for daybreak in a hotel on Bende Street. I met him in the hotel at about 11pm. I told him I was hungry and he took me outside the hotel where we bought food and ate together.

“When we got back to the hotel he told me he wanted to s*x me and that he would use his own condom but I refused. I  told him that I have my own condom, that I don’t use other people’s condom or have s*x without condom to avoid contracting disease, especially HIV. But he insisted that it must be his condom and before I could sit back on the bed, he pushed me down held my neck and started raping me. I was crying, begging him to stop but he immediately brought out a knife from his pocket and threatened to kill me if I shouted or refused him to have s*x the way he wanted it.

“He asked how much I have in my hotel room, I told him I don’t have any money, that they stole the N50, 000 I made last two weeks and he asked me how much I made that Sunday, I said it was N4, 500 and he requested I give him the money but I told it was in my room. He told me that it was a woman like me that stole his money, wristwatch, mobile phone and ran away.

“As I was still talking to him, he bound my hands and tied me on the chair with a rag, sealed because I was shouting. This was happening at about 4am the next day. As he was about going out, he held my neck very tight, strangling me with my eyes almost pulling out. When he noticed that is like I was not breathing again, he collected all my belongings including my phones locked me and left the hotel.

“It was at about 7am after they put off the generator that I regain consciousness and started shouting before the hotel management heard my voice and came to my rescue. They called the director on phone. He told the manager of the hotel to give me N5, 000 to treat myself and I bought drugs for treatment.”

Narrating what led her into prostitution, she said: “I don’t have mother mother but I have a father, who is not taking care of me and my siblings. It was my friend that introduced me into this business. I have a three years old child, who is with his father in my village.”

She further pleaded that hotel management should plant CCTV cameras in their rooms to easily trace or identify when things are going wrong in their hotel. To the police, she said  they should be committed and serious investigation should be carried out to unravel the killer of s*x workers in the state.

Recently, another 23-year-old Maureen Ewurum, a native of Abia State, and Jenifer Nwokocha, who hailed from Omoku in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers Atate, were similarly attacked in separate incidents. Unfortunately, they both died, as they were strangled to death in hotel rooms by their clients.

As if that was not enough, residents of Aggrey Road in the Garden City were, on August 22, greeted by the ugly site of a decomposing lifeless body of another commercial sex worker in the area.

The victim whose name was given as Patience Hamo, a native of Benue State and a mother of two, had reportedly gone missing since Sunday August 18 when she went out with a yet to be identified customer to unknown venue and never returned.

It was learnt that all efforts by her colleagues in a brothel on Victoria Street in Port Harcourt Township as, as her mobile phones were switched off.

Her colleagues, who visited the scene where her decomposing body was dumped, lamented that the time is hard for them, following the attacks on them by some ghost clients.

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The s*x workers also poured curses on the killer of their colleague, Patience, and also on all the clients, who have gruesomely taken the lives of s*x workers in the state.

They bemoaned that “all those strangling our girls in Port Harcourt and the killer of Patience will not find peace, they will be exposed and destroyed soon.”

Our correspondent, who visited the scene where the victim was dumped with crowd watching her in dismay, reported that her colleagues later came with an ambulance and evacuated her corpse to a mortuary at Igbo Etched in the state.

A male resident of Aggrey Road, who spoke with The Nigerian Xpress at the waste dump site where the killed s*x worker was dumped narrated that the incident has caused panic in the area. He noted that the victim was a known prostitute in the area.

The residents, who gave his name as Bright, told our correspondent that the perpetrator after killing the victim wrapped her in a large nylon and dumped her at the refuse dump site unnoticed by anyone.

He said: “As early as 6am, we woke up to see a corpse of a young woman dumped in front of our building on central waste dump point. When we approached the corpse, we noticed it was a woman killed and wrapped in a nylon. Some of the waste disposals we met at the dumping point told us that they saw the wrapped body at about 4am.

“We later discovered after they tore the nylon that the woman is a commercial s*x worker at Victoria Street, that she was missing since Sunday, August 18. Later, some of her fellow s*x workers in the same brothel came with two ambulances and took her to a mortuary. We learnt the girl is a native of Benue State and a mother of one.”

He stressed that if the street lights were on, as at the time of the incident, people would have noticed when the perpetrator dumped her body.

“This street light is part of security; if there was street light as at the time she was dumped, people would have seen the suspect but the street light is not functioning now.

“However, her co-s*x workers brought in ambulance and took her body to the mortuary,” he disclosed.

When contacted the state’s Police Public Relations Officers, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, on his mobile cell phone, he confirmed the incident.

Omoni noted that the body of the victim has been evacuated and deposited at the mortuary. He added that investigation is ongoing to unravel the perpetrators.