Igbonla Kidnap: Parents Worry As Police Says Kidnappers Have Moved Students To Inaccessible Creek

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4 of the six kidnapped pupils of Lagos State Model College in Igbonla, Epe have fallen ill, we learnt this on Tuesday. The kidnappers were said to have informed the pupil’s parents of the indisposed children.

They are insisting on N100m ransom before releasing the children.

It was gathered that the kidnappers have been talking with the parents since they resumed communication last Friday.

They were said to have told the parents to hasten payment of the ransom.

Lamenting that they have been in a fix since May 25, a parent said no government official had talked to them.

He said:

“We are in trouble. These kidnappers have been calling since and they have told us that four of the children were ill. They said we should hurry up and get the money. That government should pay the money. 

“The government has made it clear it won’t negotiate with kidnappers nor pay ransom. We have told them this already. We have also told them we are fishermen and retirees. Where do they expect us to raise N100million?

“How do we get that amount of money? We have been meeting daily on the way forward but no matter what we try to put together and tell them, they insist on N100million.”

Also yesterday, a police source said the pupils have been relocated to an inaccessible part of the creeks. Their relocation, the source said, has hindered plans to free them.

According to the source, the students would have been rescued over the weekend and the kidnappers apprehended but for the fact that gunboats cannot penetrate the area.

He said swam buggies and flat boats were needed to penetrate where the pupils were moved to.

The source said:

“After we arrested three of them last week, the kidnappers moved the students farther into the creeks, where our boats from the Marine Police cannot penetrate.

“For that terrain, which has thick bushes and foliages, we need swarm buggies and flat boats. As it is now, we are frustrated at every turn. Although we know the general area where the kidnappers are, we can’t storm in.

“Also, we have the safety of the students to think about. They have been relocated and we know the area, we don’t have the platform to penetrate that place because we are handicapped in that regard.”

[The Nation]