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Boy's kidnappers demand ransom
13/07/2007 11:07 - (SA)
Port Harcourt - Nigerian
kidnappers have demanded 10 million naira for a
three-year-old boy they snatched on his way to school in the lawless Niger Delta, relatives of the toddler said on Friday.
The boy's abduction on Thursday came just four days after a
British girl of the same age was released by her kidnappers in
the same area.
Abductions for ransom are commonplace in the Niger Delta but
children were rarely targeted until the past month, which saw
three child kidnappings.
Local rights activists fear copy-cat criminal gangs may have
seized on the idea of child abductions as the latest strategy to
extort hefty ransoms.
"They called his father and asked for 10 million naira,"
said a source in the boy's family.
Police have named the boy as Francis Samuel Amadi, the son
of a traditional ruler in the community of Iriebe on the
outskirts of Port Harcourt, the delta's main city.
The boy attends a private school in Port Harcourt and he was
being taken there by the family driver when the kidnappers
blocked the car with their own and snatched him, leaving the
driver behind.
On Sunday night, unknown ransom seekers released three-year-old
Margaret Hill unharmed after four days in captivity. Gunmen had
abducted the toddler on July 5 from the car in which she was
being driven to school in Port Harcourt.
The girl's family and authorities in Rivers state, where
Port Harcourt is located, said no money had been paid.
In June, the three-year-old son of a member of the Rivers state
House of Assembly was also kidnapped. Nigerian newspapers
reported that a ransom had been paid to obtain his release.
The Niger Delta accounts for all of Nigeria's oil wealth but
five decades of oil extraction have polluted the region and
fuelled systemic corruption in government to the point that
basic public services have collapsed.
Some rebel groups have kidnapped oil workers and attacked
oil facilities in an increasingly violent campaign for "resource
control", or local power over oil wealth. Nigeria's oil output
is down by more than 20% because of these attacks.
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