A Nigerian woman, identified as Chizoba Favour Eze, has died after she was allegedly brutalised by policemen in Ethiopia.

According to multiple sources, the young woman died because of injuries inflicted on her by the police personnel attached to Kaliti prison, a maximum security prison in Addis Abba.

Eze, who was an inmate in the facility, died on Sunday.

It was gathered that her corpse was left inside the cell for over 36 hours by the prison management who allegedly prevented other inmates from informing the Nigerian embassy about the incident.

“A Nigerian woman, Chizoba Favor Eze has been brutalised to death at Kaliti Prison in Ethiopia. She died on the 12/3/2023. It’s so sad that the policemen killed our sister. They gave her internal injury on her chest after brutally hitting her on the breasts which led to her death.

“After a week, she started feeling sick because of the result of the internal injuries she had inside her body. They took her to the hospital for the first time to receive treatment and the doctor gave her injection and they brought her back to her room. The deceased started feeling weak again and they took her to the hospital on Saturday being 11/3/2023, then they brought the same injection which the deceased complained bitterly that the injection was not good on her body, she added that she didn’t want take any injection again, and they gave her the injection forcefully.

“On Sunday morning she died. She died inside her room which made the other foreigners, such as Brazilian, Venezuelan women and others felt bad because the injection the deceased took led to her death.

“The foreigners went through the bag of the deceased and took the Nigerian embassy’s telephone number in order to call the embassy, because the deceased body was there with them in the room for over 36 hours, so the foreigners decided to call the embassy of Nigeria to tell them what was happening, the police women refused that they should call the embassy.

“The foreigners started protesting, and the police women called the police men to the zone, when they came, they started beating all the foreigners brutally and wounded so many of them, of which some of them that went to court yesterday (Monday) complained bitterly to the judges. We are calling on the embassy of Nigeria in Ethiopia to help us,” a source told SaharaReporters.

SaharaReporters had recently reported that over 300 Nigerians were presently languishing in the Ethiopian prison facility.

Some of them had called on the Nigerian government to facilitate their transfer to prisons in Nigeria.

The detainees said they suffer grave human rights abuses in prison.

In a letter addressed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the Nigerian embassy in Ethiopia, they also complained of starvation, lack of access to medical care, corporal and capital punishment, and overcrowding.

“The Nigerian inmates in Kaliti maximum prison Ethiopia are soliciting help from the Nigerian government; we ask that the government come to our aid urgently.

“We lack access to water, food and medical care. We are asking the government to intervene so we can serve the rest of our jail terms in Nigeria. Many of us have fallen ill due to malnourishment, the health infrastructure is weak, and inmates are suffering from precarious health issues,” part of the letter read.

Nigerian Government react

Meanwhile, the Federal Government and the Nigerian Mission in Ethiopia will demand a full investigation into the circumstances that led to the death of a Nigerian, Chizoba Favour Eze, in Ethiopian prison.

This was made known in a statement signed by the Spokesperson, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abdur-Rahman Balogun, on Wednesday.

Chizoba was said to have died in Kaliti prison, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on March 12, 2023, following alleged physical aggression.

Balogun said the NIDCOM Chairman, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, consoled the family of the late Eze and expressed concern over the reported conditions of some Nigerians, serving various jail terms in Ethiopia, most of whom were drug-related.

The statement read, “The Nigerian Mission in Ethiopia has proposed an MOU from the Nigerian Correctional Service on the transfer of sentenced persons to Nigeria with the Ethiopian authorities to complete their respective jail terms in Nigeria, and are awaiting a response from Ethiopia.

“Though Ethiopia had granted an amnesty to Nigerian Prisoners in 2019, a number of Nigerians still found their way back to the country and allegedly still committed the same drug-related crimes and were re-arrested.”