Twenty young graduates who were kidnapped in Nigeria last week while traveling to begin compulsory national service have been rescued, police said, BBC News reported.
The group was seized on Oct. 1 when gunmen attacked two buses carrying them on a major highway from Ibadan, in southwestern Oyo state, to National Youth Service Corps orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states. Police spokesman Ani Iniedu said in a statement Wednesday that they were freed at Amakohia Ubi in Imo State after a sustained search-and-rescue operation by police with the military and other security agencies, and that they had been taken for medical evaluation.
Iniedu did not say whether a ransom was paid or whether anyone had been arrested, but said efforts were under way to catch the kidnappers. Police had earlier said they had found where the group was being held but could not move in because the site was mined with explosives. Before the rescue, the father of one captive, Omotosho Adewale, told the BBC the kidnappers had demanded 50 million naira, about $37,680, which he could not afford. “There’s no peace of mind. I’ve not eaten in three days,” he said.
The National Youth Service Corps is a mandatory one-year community service program for most Nigerian university graduates. Kidnapping for ransom is a major security problem in Nigeria, and the government’s ban on paying ransoms has had little effect, according to the BBC report. Authorities have not identified the attackers.
Sources: BBC News
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