TheCable

The Anambra police command says it rescued two children kidnapped from Gombe state.

The two kids, Mustapha Abdulazeez and Musa Yusuf, both two-years-old, were kidnapped in Gombe state, but have been reunited with their parents.

According to the police, the kids were on October 20, stolen by a child trafficking syndicate and brought to Tanzan junction area of Onitsha.

While parading the suspects, Haruna Mohammed, police public relations officer, who represented John Abang, the state commissioner of police, said the children were kidnapped from Gombe and rescued in Anambra state through the intelligence network of security operatives.

Mohammed said the children were kept in the welfare department of the police. He said the force confirmed that the people, who came to claim the kids were their biological parents, before they were released to them.

He said the suspects, Patience Opia from Cross River; Ejece Obi from Anambra, and Blessing John from Bauchi state, had planned to sell each of the children at the cost of N750,000 before they ran out of luck.

“It would be recalled that on the 22/10/2019 at about 10:45am, following intelligence report, police detectives attached to Anambra state command arrested three female suspects at Nkpor market/Tarzan junction in Idemili north local government area of Anambra state,” Haruna said.

“Preliminary investigation revealed that the children were stolen from Gombe by one Blessing Musa ‘f’ on the 20/10/2019 and brought to her accomplices in Anambra state. Following the public announcement by the command on the 27/10/2019, parents of the two kids from Gombe state came to Awka and identified their children.

“They also revealed their names as Walid Yusuf aged 3 years and Mustapha Abdulaziz aged 2 years respectively.

He said the suspects have been handed over to the Gombe state police command for further investigation and prosecution.

Abdulaziz Suleman, a parent of one of the children, said the kids were playing at home when they were kidnapped.

“Our children were playing in their compound when they were kidnapped,” he said.

“One of our neighbours alerted us after he saw the pictures of the boys on facebook where they were rescued in Anambra.

“As soon as we confirmed they were our children, we quickly rushed down to the state to reclaim our children. When the children saw us they jumped and ran to us.”

The Kano police command had announced that it arrested eight suspects who specialise in trafficking children.

The police said members of the group were traced to Onitsha, and that nine kidnapped children were rescued.