Operatives attached to the Borno State Police Command have rescued two abducted Almajiri children and a two-year-old baby girl from the claws of a suspected child trafficker, Nkwenwu.
The children were rescued at Borno express motor park in Maiduguri on Friday morning while being trafficked to Abuja when a food vendor got suspicious of Nkwenwu movement at the park.
NigeriaCrime.com gathered that the suspect Mrs. Nkwenwu who is currently in police custody arrived at the Borno express motor park alongside three children two males and a baby girl strapped on her back late Thursday evening on her way to Abuja. Because it was late she demanded accommodations to spend the night in the park.
However, trouble started when a food vendor at the park got suspicious of her movement and alerted the park authorities.
On Friday morning security and surveillance team and the Civilian Joint Task Force, members working in the park led arrested the suspect.
According to Mallam Bukar, a member of the Civilian Joint Taskforce at the motor park, the woman solicited accommodation to spend the night in the park and after undergoing interrogations by security and surveillance officials they give her a room where she and the children slept.”
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“When one of the children was hungry and began to scream for food, she rushed him to a nearby food vendor where some women notice that the child crying had Kanuri tribal marks on his face and become suspicious about the woman who ordered food for him.”
Explaining further, Bukar said, “out of curiosity, one of the women questioned the child in Kanuri dialect and the boy revealed that the woman picked him up at the popular post office roundabout and promise to buy him slippers. It was the woman that notified us that a woman with suspicious movement has a Kanuri boy (Almajiri children) at her shop.”
When I got to the food vendors shop, I met the boy eating but the woman had gone back to the park where the remaining children were. When she came back, I approached her to know her relationship with the children. She claimed that the child belongs to her elder sister who is also going to travel alongside them to Abuja. We waited for hours for the acclaimed sister but did not show up and we reported to the police who move her to the Metro Police Station.”
Confirming the rescue, the Police spokesman in Borno State command ASP Sani Kamilu Muhammed said that the suspected trafficker was arrested with the children. However, investigation is ongoing.
Over the years there has been an increase in missing children and child theft within Maiduguri and its environment.