Men From Hell Snatch 20 Children in Calabar in 3 Months…...
File: Suspects paraded with the stolen children…..
Vanguard
April 12, 2014
With
over 20 kids abducted in three months in Calabar, the stories
surrounding their disappearance are like tales from the moon, but what
is happening to kids between the ages of three and six in the Cross
River State capital, is far from tales; they are real life incidents
which are sending fear down the spine of many parents.
Since
February, men from hell have besieged the city, snatching children
suspected for ritual purposes or sale to barren women around the city
who allegedly pay triple digit amounts for the kids.
The Cross
River State House of Assembly and the State Security Adviser, Mr Rekpene
Bassey, disturbed by the trend, raised the alarm but this has not
yielded any results. The police in the state are yet to make arrest on
the kidnapped children.
Describing the modus operandi of the
abductors, Bassey said they would position themselves in busy areas to
watch out for parents who park cars with children inside to abduct the
kids. In other cases, the thieves abduct children playing outside their
residences. Others are snatched while on errand or on the way to or from
school. And in some daring cases, the abductors snatch kids from
parents while pretending to offer them lift. The security adviser warned
parents to beware of child kidnappers and assured that security
agencies had been placed on the alert over the situation.
In one
of the cases of child kidnapping which occurred on March 23, a
four-year-old, Nsew Udo Akpan, was snatched by abductors while playing
outside his home with his sister at Atekong Street, Biq Qua Town.
Another 4-year-old-boy,
Effiong Edet, was abducted in Ikot Onim area of Calabar by hoodlums who
raided the community in an Audi car with the number plate covered.
The
kidnappers struck at about 8:30 pm on Wednesday March 12 while the
local vigilante members, majority of whom are said to be football
lovers, were preoccupied with watching the Arsenal match against a
Turkish football club in the European league.
The gang, on arrival at
the community, reportedly drove to the Edets compound where they
sighted the boy (Effiong) and his friends playing.
The hoodlums
first attempted to whisk away a six-year old boy, identified as Joseph,
who resisted his assailants by crying and biting one of the kidnappers
on the hand which caused them to abandon him and then seizing Effiong
who they bundled into their car and sped off.
In February, a
three-year, old-boy, Victor Offiong-Edem, was taken away by unknown
persons at the Assemblies of God Church, located at 14, Nnamdi Azikiwe
Street, Calabar South, during Sunday service.
The father of the
boy, Mr Offiong Edem, a staff of the College of Health Technology,
Calabar, told Sunday Vanguard that he took his family to the church on
the fateful day. After the offering, he went to work and left Victor in
the company of his wife, Angelica, and his other son, Samuel, but was
later informed that Victor had gone missing.
“I work on Sundays.
After giving my offering that day, I went to work leaving behind my
wife, Angelica, Samuel, my first son, and Victor in the church only to
be called later that Victor had gone missing ”, Edem stated.
Mrs
Angelica Offiong, mother of the missing boy, said after the close of
service, she had a short meeting with some church members. “After the
meeting, I went to pick my bag where I kept it not far away from where I
stood and, when I turned back, Victor was nowhere to be found”, she
narrated, tears rolling down her cheeks.
The kidnapper, according
to her, must have been monitoring her and the children and as soon as
her eyes were turned away from the child, he took away the boy.
Pastor
Chukwu Ekeke, the head pastor of the Assemblies of God Church, said
this was the “first time an unfortunate incident like this would take
place in this church”. He added, “Prayers have been said and I know God
will certainly bring back that boy”.
In January, two siblings,
Goodluck Charles Eyo and Promise Charles Eyo, were playing in front of
their residence, located at 98 Eserebom Street, Calabar South, while the
mother, Uduak Charles, went to the back of the house to take her
bath. When she stepped out of the bathroom, the two kids were gone.
Their father, Charles Eyo, a Keke Napep rider, said he had done
“everything spiritual and physical to get the children back to no
avail”.
Also in January, a mother, Janet Ekpe, was walking along
Bakoko Road, at 8 Miles, Calabar, when two men in a car stopped by; she
thought they wanted to find out how to locate a place. “One of them was
in the car while the other came out. I thought he wanted to ask me the
number of a street but, before I knew it, he snatched Junior out of my
hand, ran into the car and they sped off”.
The lady, who said she
was stunned to know what was happening, said she came to her senses
after the car had gone far. By the time she started screaming, the
thieves had disappeared.
A member of Cross River State House of
Assembly, Ngim Okpo, brought a motion of urgent public interest “on the
increasing incidents of child snatching where, in recent time which have
seen cases of kidnapping of innocent children by some unscrupulous
elements for alleged ritual purposes”, before the House.
He
called on the House to pass a resolution to compel “relevant government
agencies to sensitize members of the public against falling prey”.
The
police, on their part, said efforts were on to unravel the syndicates
behind the stealing of children in Cross River State. Mr Hogan Bassey,
the spokesman for Cross River Police Command, told Sunday Vanguard:
“Police cannot be everywhere; members of the public should volunteer
information on those they suspect to be the brain behind abduction in
the state”.
No comments:
Post a Comment