SOME parents of the abducted students of Bethel Baptist High School, Kaduna, have said the kidnappers called them to pick up their children at different locations with the promise that they (students) have all been released.
However, only 15 of the students, who were kidnapped in July, regained their freedom on Sunday after 46 days in the captors’ den.
The students, who were picked up at different locations by their parents after calls were placed to them (parents) by the abductors, were discovered to be weak and could barely walk.
“They called us individually and told us to come and pick our children. When we got to the location they left our children, we found them very weak, barely able to work,” Samuel, one of the parents, disclosed.
Another parent, Ruth Makama, disclosed that she was called upon to come for her daughter, but on getting there, she discovered her daughter was not one of those released.
Twenty-eight students were earlier released after the payment of N50 million, while the latest release was after the payment of an additional N24 million.
The students, 121 in numbers, according to the President, Kaduna Baptist Conference, who is also the Proprietor of the school, Rev. Ishaya Jangado, were kidnapped in the early hours of July 5, 2021, around 2am on the school premises along the Kaduna-Kachia highway, Damishi, Chikun LGA of the state.
With the release of 15 out of the 80 students, 65 of the students are still in the kidnappers’ den
The students were handed over to the traumatised parents at around 1:30pm.
The students, who were conveyed in an 18-seater bus into the secretariat, were not looking unkempt, a contrast to condition of the first batch of 28 students earlier freed by the bandits.
The development, the President of the Baptist Convention, Rev. Israel Akanji, explained was because the released students were allowed to refresh before being reunited with the parents unlike the previous ones who looked unkempt and pale.
Addressing newsmen shortly after handing over the students to their parents, Akanji said they expected the bandits to release the remaining children, who he said, were 78 with them (bandits).
Copyright PUNCH.
