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A Nigerian police officer. (Yasuyoshi Ciba / AFP)
Twenty-nine individuals kidnapped by gunmen two weeks in the past as they returned from a marriage in northwest Nigeria have been freed, family informed AFP Friday.
The victims, cell phone merchants, have been returning again to Zamfara state capital Gusau after attending the marriage of a colleague when one in every of their automobiles broke down late on June 11.
“Twenty 9 of our members kidnapped two weeks in the past have been launched on Thursday after we paid 20 million naira ($50,000) to their captors,” mentioned Kabiru Garba Mukhtar, the top of the Zamfara cellular merchants’ union.
The day after the kidnapping, Mukhtar informed AFP that 30 company on the wedding ceremony had been kidnapped whereas 20 others managed to flee.
Actually, 29 individuals have been kidnapped and all have been launched, he claimed.
“Their launch adopted intense negotiations with the bandits who had initially demanded 145 million naira ransom for the hostages,” mentioned Mustapha Halifa, one other union official.
After their launch, the victims have been taken to hospital to be handled for sicknesses contracted due to the “tough situations” of their captivity, Halifa mentioned.
Closely-armed prison gangs recognized domestically as “bandits” are rampant in northwest and central Nigeria, attacking villages and finishing up mass kidnappings for ransom regardless of navy operations to fight them.
Gunmen on Wednesday kidnapped 22 farmers from their fields on the outskirts of Nigeria’s capital Abuja, the most recent in a protracted line of kidnappings in Africa’s most populous nation.
The gangs function for monetary causes with no ideological motive.
However doable alliances with jihadist teams who’ve waged an insurgency within the northeast for 13 years have raised issues.
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