On Monday in the commercial city of Onitsha, a sex worker committed suicide in Frontline Tourism and Hotels Limited located at old market road. The deceased, simply identified as Chisom, from Enugu State, our correspondent gathered, was said to have died after washing plates she ate with, Sunday night.
It was gathered that the incident had made neighbours and occupants, mostly sex-workers including petty traders within to desert the area. Although the cause of the death is still sketchy as time of filing this report, it was gathered that while some close resident who pleaded anonymity said she hung herself in her hotel room because her boyfriend abandoned her, others said she might have been strangled to death by an early caller over financial disagreement, while another version alleged she took poison and died.
She said, “She had a boy friend that always spent a lot of money on her. Even this last Christmas the boy came to her with a bag of rice, #200,000, among other items and asked her to travel for Christmas and come back later. “As soon as she came back, she was told that her boyfriend had married. Since then she started behaving abnormally and just three days ago she was seen holding a rope on her hand.
“When asked why she was holding the rope she became aggressive and early in the morning, she swept her room and about 9am what we heard was that she has committed suicide in her room.
“We saw her neck tied with a rope to the window in her room but the legs were touching the floor. So we don’t know if it is suicide, no foam was gushing out from her mouth, but the tongue is out.”
When our correspondent visited the scene, sympathizers were seen attempting to gain access to the hotel to have a glimpse of the corpse, while some of the sex workers were hurriedly moving out with their belongings for fear of being arrested.
One of the sympathizers who is familiar with the environment, disclosed that the sex worker charged between N3, 000 to N7000 depending on their class.
She queried why the hotel owners should allow the call girls leave the hotel with their personal effects when the body of the deceased was yet to been removed, insisting they have questions to answer.
A group of policemen from the Onitsha Area Police Area Command, close to the scene of the incident, visited the hotel at about 12.30pm and left with some officials of the hotel which returned with an ambulance and took the corpse away.
Confirming the incident, Police spokesperson, Tochukwu Ikenga said investigation has commenced, “No suicide note was found in the room to suspect suicide. We’re exploring all options to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death,” he noted.
