The Imo State Police Command has located the suspected camp where 19 prospective National Youth Service Corps members abducted in the state are being held, but security operatives have yet to storm the location because of fears that the area may have been rigged with improvised explosive devices.
The state Commissioner of Police, Audu Garba Bosso, disclosed this on Saturday while providing an update on efforts to rescue the victims.
According to Bosso, security operatives deployed drones on Friday after tracking the suspected kidnappers into the bush, leading to the discovery of the location where the victims were believed to be held.
He said the operation was being handled cautiously following intelligence indicating that explosives had been planted around the suspected kidnappers’ camp.
“Any moment, we’ll still move into the bush. Yesterday, we were in the bush, we trailed them up to a particular location.
“But at that point in time, we couldn’t move in to where the coordinate showed us where they are because we ran drones yesterday. And the drone actually showed us exactly their location.
“But our predicament is that with the intel we have, the IED is—the camp is mined with IEDs,” the commissioner said.
Bosso explained that security agencies were making preparations to enter the area with heavy-duty equipment, including bulldozers and armoured personnel carriers, to facilitate the safe rescue of the abducted corps members.
“We are moving in there with high, you know, high-velocity vehicles, that is, bulldozers, we’re moving in with bulldozers and APCs to see how we’re going to rescue these victims unhurt,” he added.
The development followed the abduction of the prospective corps members, who were travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to NYSC orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The victims were reportedly travelling in two buses when gunmen intercepted them along the Owerri-Onitsha Road around the Umunoha area of Imo State on Thursday.
The Managing Director of Uko Akwa Ibom Motors Nigeria Limited, Isiah Akpan, had said that 19 passengers, all prospective corps members, were taken into the bush by the attackers.
Akpan said the drivers managed to escape and subsequently alerted security personnel at a nearby checkpoint, prompting security agencies to begin searching the area.
The kidnappers have reportedly demanded N50m for each victim, bringing the total ransom demand to N950m. Some of the victims’ families were allegedly contacted through the phones of their abducted relatives.
A mother of one of the victims, Mrs Oladosu, also said that the kidnappers contacted her family using her daughter’s phone. She said the family was able to see some of the abducted persons during a video call.
Earlier, the Imo State Police Command had announced that 10 victims were rescued. However, the command’s spokesperson, Henry Okoye, said he could not confirm whether those rescued were part of the prospective corps members abducted along the Owerri-Onitsha Road.
With the latest development, security operatives have reportedly identified the location of the remaining victims as efforts intensify to secure their safe release.
(PUNCH)
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