Tensions are currently high in Benue State following the abduction of no fewer than 22 children within the age range of four and seven years old in the last six weeks.
According to reports, mothers of the kidnapped children, on Thursday, October 8, 2015 met with the state governor, Chief Samuel Ortom, crying and pleading with him to come to their aid and rescue their lost children.
Narrating her ordeal to newsmen, one of the women, Mrs Ngodoo Amiaser said her son, Tersoo Paul Amiaser, a 4-year-old pupil of Joel Model School, Gboko road, Makurdi went missing since Saturday, August 29, 2015.
Amiaser, a trader at Wurukum market, said the young boy who had gone with her to the market on that fateful day had gone to play somewhere within the market and went missing ever since.
She said: “My son went to play close by within the market. He left my shop at about 4pm but by 5pm when he usually came back I didn’t see him. So, I went looking for him and in the process, a young girl said she saw my son with a woman whom she could not identify and asked where he was going but the woman told the girl she was my sister and that I had asked her to go and buy Bobo juice for my son.”
The state Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Austin Ezeani, confirmed the incident although he failed to state the exact number of victims kidnapped so far.
Ezeani said the kidnappers were selling the children for money while some were demanding some ransom from the victims’ parents.
He said the kidnappers are being traced to Enugu State, adding that some persons have been arrested in connection with the incident.
