Fourth child kidnapped in Nigeria
Gunmen smashed a window and grabbed a three-year-old from his father’s Mercedes four-wheel drive vehicle today, bringing to four the number of children kidnapped for ransom in Nigeria’s oil-rich south.
The boy, Samuel, is the son of a prominent town chief – a troubling indication that the lucrative ransoms gangs demand in exchange for kidnapped foreigners may be inspiring copycat abductions of the children of well-to-do Nigerian families.
“Four gunmen blocked the Jeep. They smashed the windshield and took the boy away,” said Azubuike Ihemeje, an aide to the boy’s father, Eze Francis Amadi. “The chief is highly devastated.”
He said the kidnappers demanded the equivalent of nearly £200,000, even providing an account number for the bank transfer, but eventually settled on 5 million naira (about £20,000) – “which they said should be paid immediately or the boy should be killed.”
He did not confirm that the ransom had been paid and Samuel, seized on his way to nursery school, has not yet been returned.
The driver of the vehicle is being questioned, Rivers state police spokeswoman Irejua Barasua said.
Samuel was seized just two days after Nigeria’s new police chief, Mike Okiro, announced a crackdown amid a surge of kidnappings in the Niger Delta.
More than 150 foreigners – including three-year-old British girl Margaret Hill, who was freed on Sunday after four days in captivity – have been snatched so far this year, matching the total for all of last year.
Samuel is among three Nigerian children kidnapped this year, with gangs now apparently targeting rich local families. The three others have been released.
Analysts say the prospect of large cash ransoms encourages the kidnappings, which first began when impoverished communities took oil workers hostage to protest at pollution or failed development projects.
Gradually, more organised militant groups began to use the publicity generated by kidnapping foreigners to put pressure on the government for more political rights – and a greater share of oil revenues for their neglected region.
Few suspects are arrested, encouraging gangs to think of hostages as easy cash, experts said.
“It’s a bunch of criminal gangs cashing in on the cash-for-kidnap culture,” said one security consultant.
The captors of Margaret, the daughter of Briton Mike Hill, who has lived in Nigeria for years, and his Nigerian wife Oluchi, repeatedly threatened to kill her unless their demands for money were met, said her mother.
They made no political demands.
However, Ihemeje said the kidnappers threatened to cut off Samuel’s hands if the father reported the matter to the police.
Many workers in the Delta say the dangers of working in the oil-rich region now seem too great.
One foreigner married to a Nigerian woman said he was not letting his children out of a guarded compound now.
“I’m keeping them under lock and key. It’s like being in prison for them,” said the parent, who did not want to be named for fear of becoming a target.
He said he planned to close his company, leaving scores of Nigerian employees without a job, and leave the country with his family.
