Five of the six children of the Al-Kadriyar family who were kidnapped earlier this month by bandits in the Bwari area of Abuja have been freed by their captors.
The siblings as well as other hostages were taken to the kidnapping gang’s hideout at Kajuru Forest in nearby Kaduna State.
The Nigerian police say they busted the forest base on 20 January, freeing the girls.
“Following the relentless advancement of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Police Command anti-kidnapping squad in a concerted effort with troops of the Nigerian Army, on the heels of the kidnappers that struck the Zuma 1 area in the Bwari Area Council on the 2nd of January 2024, the FCT Police has rescued the victims and reunited them with their families,” said the FCT Police spokesperson, Josephine Adeh.
“The operatives successfully rescued the victims around Kajuru forest in Kaduna state at about 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, 20 January 2024.”
The kidnappers had demanded a ransom for their release, but the statement by the police made no mention of any being paid.
The five sisters, aged from the early teens to 23, were seized alongside their father, Mansoor Al-Kadriyar and another sister who was later killed, on 2 January at the family home in Bwari, a suburb of Abuja which is 15 miles from Abuja city centre.
The attackers killed one sister, 21-year-old Nabeeha Al-Kadriyar when a ransom deadline passed and threatened to kill the other five should the family fail to provide a N100 million ransom.
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