People who live in Kungabokun and Paze, two towns in the Byazhin region on the outskirts of Kubwa, Bwari Area Council, have told of the terrible things that happened to them after a gang of kidnappers attacked them over and over again.
Reports from Daily Trust say that at least 16 people were kidnapped in three different events that happened just a week apart.
Reports say that the bandits took cooking pots and oil during the attacks. Then, they sent the victims’ relatives an account number to demand ransom payments.
The attacks in Kungabokun
Gunmen broke into the home of a retired military captain in Kungabokun and took his three children. They also broke into a nearby poultry farm, killing a guard and taking three workers hostage.
The gunmen also invaded a herder’s village and took two housewives and a teenage girl who was visiting the family to help her sister, who was breastfeeding.
Rescue efforts in Paze
In the nearby town of Paze, attackers broke into a pastor’s house and took his four children.
It looks like all of the victims were rescued last Thursday, a week after the event, save for those who were evacuated from the herder’s village. This happened because of a joint security operation that took place along the border between the FCT and Kaduna State.
An anonymous staff member from the impacted farm said he was asked to go to the Divisional Police Headquarters in Byazhin. There, he was told that his three “boys” (workers) had been saved and that he should go to Lungi Barracks in Abuja to pick them up.
He further said that five guns were found, four of which were AK-47s and one of which was stolen from the dead vigilante.
Reports say that four of the attackers died during the rescue effort. Before getting back together with their families, many of whom live outside the FCT, the workers who were rescued were sent to a hospital for treatment.
A scared community
When police went to the pastor’s house in Paze, they found it empty and the gates shut. Neighbors say the family hasn’t been back since the kids were taken.
One person who saw the attack about 9 p.m. said they saw males wearing masks.
He told the local vigilante group, who got there shortly but were met with a lot of gunfire.
“The vigilante team was lucky to be able to get away,” the resident stated.
The gunmen went on to kidnap several people, including a commercial biker and his two passengers.
There were bullet holes in a neighboring church sign, which showed how violent the night was.
The resident was thankful for the successful rescue, but they were sad that so many people are now leaving the region in terror.
A lot of people have been rescued, but the relatives of the two housewives and the teenage girl who were seized from the herder’s hamlet in Kungabokun are still having a hard time.
Dalha Sulaiman, a resident, told of the raid at 1 a.m. on Friday: “They put a gun in my face and said they would shoot.” They kicked me out of my room and made me take them to my brother’s house. They took my second wife and my older brother’s wife.
Sulaiman said that the gunmen took an oil and a cooking pot with them when they left. At first, the kidnappers wanted N40 million for the three victims, but they then decreased their demand to N2 million.
“They sent us account details and asked us to pay into it,” Sulaiman said. He also said that the family is presently begging the kidnappers to take N1.5 million.
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