All 65 kidnapped passengers have been released
On the 28th of March, 2022, bandits attacked an Abuja-Kaduna train. The attackers denoted a bomb on the rail track, successfully derailing the train. Thereafter, they surrounded the train, shot sporadically at it and kidnapped some of the train’s passengers.
Since then the kidnappers have been releasing the hostages in batches. Fortunately, the last 23 victims were released early this month after spending about 191 days in captivity.
The victims were immediately stabilized and transported from the bush to the Nigerian Defense Academy’s medical centre. There they reportedly met with President Muhammadu Buhari, after which some of them were reunited with their family members at the Nigerian Air force medical centre. Six of the released passengers were admitted to the medical centre because they weren’t stable enough.
Some of the released victims recounted their ordeals while in captivity. As one can expect, it was far from pretty even though some of them looked physically stable. One of the released passengers who is a student of Kaduna State University said one of the terrorist commanders indicated an interest in marrying her. Her brother also confirmed that she is still very sick and is on admission. He stated that she required a blood transfusion and he went to donate blood for her.
Another kidnapped victim who is a member of the NYSC also recounted his terrible ordeal with the terrorists. He joined the train hoping it was safer than travelling by road, but unfortunately, he got kidnapped in the march attack. He explained how the terrorists made them walk barefooted for four days in the jungle stopping at different transit camps before officially arriving at the main camp where they stayed for 191 days. He also stated doctors were brought to the camp to treat the sick and injured and when anyone requested medications, it was also brought to the camp.
There are still a couple of questions that still haven’t been answered. One of them is: If ransoms were paid to effect the release of the hostages, what exactly are the security operatives doing to ensure something like this never occurs again?
#STATEAFFAIRS is a segment that gives you a quick rundown of various political and state issues as they happen in the most simple, subtle language. In this edition, we are looking at the release of the remaining victims of the Kaduna train attack.
