The Imo State Police Command says it has located the suspected hideout of the gunmen who abducted 19 prospective National Youth Service Corps members along the Owerri-Onitsha Road.
The State Commissioner of Police, Audu Gabrba Bosso, disclosed this while giving an update on efforts to rescue the abducted corps members.
Bosso said police operatives spent the previous day tracking the suspected kidnappers through the bush before establishing the location of their camp using coordinates.
“Yesterday we were in the bush, we trailed them out to a particular location but at that point in time we couldn’t move in to where the coordinate showed us where they are,” he said.
According to him, the coordinates were checked repeatedly before operatives were able to confirm the precise location of the camp.
He, however, said intelligence gathered by the police indicated that the area had been heavily mined with improvised explosive devices, making it dangerous for operatives to move in immediately.
“But predicament is that with the intel we have, the IEDs — the camp is mined with IEDs,” Bosso said.
The commissioner said the police were making arrangements to deploy bulldozers and Armoured Personnel Carriers to facilitate safe access to the area and aid the rescue operation.
“We are moving with bulldozers and APCs to see how we are going to rescue these victims on time,” he said.
Recall that NPO Reported that the graduates were on Thursday abducted while travelling from Ibadan, Oyo state, to their National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The abductors have now demanded N50m for each victim, putting the total ransom at N950m.
