Rivers State: Kidnappers hijack bus with 12 passengers; Kill 3 occupants, rape ladies # Survivor narrates ordeal
CHINEDU WOSU, PORT HARCOURT
Rampaging kidnappers along the East/West road in the Ndele axis, near Elele Community in Rivers State, Sunday, August 13, 2017, hijacked a bus loaded with twelve passengers travelling from Port Harcourt to Bayelsa state, killed three of the passengers and raped three girls randomly for four days.
The kidnappers also killed the driver of the bus for speaking Ikwerre dialect and injured scores of others for trying to escape.
The occupants of the hijacked bus, which was loaded at, and took off from, the University of Port Harcourt junction on the fateful Sunday, had their sad experiences forty five minutes after the bus took off for Yenagoa.
Narrating his ordeal to our Correspondent, four days after his release from the lions’ den, Mr. Levy Ibekwe, a native of Omuchiolu community, Aluu in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers state said, he was saved by an act of God as three of his fellow passengers were killed instantly in the bush by the blood thirsty kidnappers for exchanging words with them.
The survivor, who works with a company located in Imiringi Community, Ogbia, Bayelsa state said, he was travelling back to Yenagoa on the sad day at about 7.pm when, along the Ndele axis, shortly after a Police check point, over eleven armed youths emerged from the bush and started shooting at their bus and stopped the driver and whisked the occupants into the thick forest for ransom.
Ibekwe, who told this publication that they were fed with garri and soup for four days, disclosed that the three girls in the bus were subjected to marathon sex ordeals by the kidnappers as each was raped by seven men daily for four days in the thick forest.
The survivor, a former staff of University of Port Harcourt, equally revealed that they were flogged with a machete and other sharp objects and tied both legs and hands and kept in the scorching sun and in the rain for days.
Ibekwe said the abductors collected all their belongs including cell phones, ATM cards, shoes and cash and asked them to call their relations who later paid ransoms ranging from N250, 000 to N350,000 per head before they were released.
The victim said his brothers and wife secured his release with the sum of N350, 000 after he had received eleven machete whips. He also alleged that all the kidnappers are sons of Rumuji, Ndele, Rumuekpe and Ibaa communities in Emohua local government Area as they all were speaking Ikwerre language while he pretended to be an Igbo man.
Ibekwe appealed to the federal and state governments to beef up security along the Emohua, Ndele, Rumuji, Rumuekpe and Elele roads both day and night, noting that most of the sad incidents along the axis take place on Sundays and in the night hours.
He regretted that lives and property are no longer safe along the route stressing that passengers and commuters are no longer safe plying the busy route.
Before the hijack of these passengers and the killing of some of them, kidnappers had also hijacked another bus belonging to a popular transport company (name with held) along the same axis, disposed the occupants of their belongings, shot the driver and injured many of the passengers.
