No fewer than 30 passengers and staff of the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) are believed to have been victims of late Saturday’s kidnap by gunmen at the Igueben train sub-station in Edo State.
Recall that the Edo State Police Command, at the weekend, announced that scores of travellers waiting to board a train from Igueben, in Igueben local government area of the State to Warri, in Delta State, were kidnapped by suspected herdsmen.
The Command, in a press statement endorsed by its spokesman, Chidi Nwabuzor, stated that the incident happened at about 4.00pm on Saturday.
According to the statement, the suspected herdsmen, who were armed with AK-47 rifles, invaded the train station and shot sporadically into the air before herding an unspecified number of intending travellers into the bush. In the process, some of the passengers, the Command added, sustained bullet wounds, just as it assured Nigerians that bush combing and rescue operations had begun.
The kidnappers reportedly released two children and dropped them in an abandoned petrol station. They are said to have called the family of the mother of the children, saying that they should go and pick the children from the place they dropped them. One woman, who escaped with her little baby, reportedly found herself in Opoji, which is in Esan-Central local government area”.
Speaking on the development yesterday, the Liaison Officer to Igueben local government area, Best Oseh, said security agencies and para-military organisations are combing the forests within the area with a view to rescuing the victims and arrest of those behind the dastard act.
The railway station is surrounded by forest, and there is no security, no police, no vigilante and they are at the mercy of God. The station is in Igeueben town, just about 1.2 km away from Igueben General Hospital.
