Parents Of Abducted Bethel Baptist Students Raise Alarm Over Fate Of 80 Victims Still In Captivity
Parents of the abducted Bethel Baptist High School students in Kaduna are helpless and confused in the face of their children’s continuing imprisonment in the hands of their kidnappers.
Recall that bandits raided Bethel Baptist High School, Damishi, Kaduna, in the early hours of Monday, July 5, 2021, abducting 121 students.
Some of the school’s kids have regained their freedom, while others have fled and another group has been released on medical grounds.
According to reliable information obtained by NEWS DIRECT, at least 80 pupils are still in the hands of their kidnappers, with parents paying a ransom of roughly N60 million to secure the release of some of the students.
In an interview with Reuters, the state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Rev. John Joseph Hayab, said that the bandits are now demanding N1 million from each parent of the remaining 80 students in their custody, for a total of N80 million in ransom.
According to one of the abducted students’ parents, who requested anonymity, it is the school’s parents who are bearing the brunt of the state’s student abductions.
Another parent of the freed students revealed that he and other parents went through hell before they could afford the kidnappers’ demands for their children’s release.
According to him, “I had to sell our family farm and other valuable assets at our disposal. Even one of my sons, who is in the university, had to contribute his tuition fee to see that his younger brother regained freedom.”
The state government, led by Nasir El-Rufai, has made it clearly clear that it will not pay any ransom to kidnappers.
The state government, in its wisdom, closed 13 schools that were thought to be vulnerable to kidnapping attacks in order to protect them from bandits.
