Lagos – Security operatives on Sunday rescued 12 people who were kidnapped a week earlier by a criminal gang at a train station in southern Nigeria’s Edo state, the local government said.
Gunmen launched the attack 360 kilometres (220 miles) east of Lagos on January 7, kidnapping dozens of people including young children who were waiting for a train to Delta state.
“Twelve of the remaining 14 kidnapped victims from the Igueben train station attack have been rescued by a combined team of security operatives,” Edo state information commissioner Chris Osa Nehikhare said on Sunday.
There was some confusion whether the total number of people initially kidnapped was nearer 24 or 32.
But Nehikhare said on Sunday there were only “two remaining hostages”.
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The rescue operation was led by “various security agencies in the state, hunters and members of the Edo State Security Network (a vigilante group)”, Nehikhare said.
“During the encounter with the abductors… some of the kidnappers were arrested. However, a few of the kidnappers escaped with two of the hostages,” he said.
The authorities will “leave no stone unturned in securing the release of the two remaining hostages,” he added.
Kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria, where gunmen known locally as “bandits” carry out mass abductions, mostly in the northwest, although violence has spilled over to other regions.
President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army commander who promised to make Nigeria safer, is due to step down after the general election next month.
Insecurity is expected to be a major challenge for his successor.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Unsplash
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