The Nigeria Army has arrested a suspected child trafficker, who specialises in moving children from Plateau State in North Central zone to River State in South-South zone.
The arrest was part of the ongoing “Exercise Atilogwu Udo 1’’.
Col. Aliyu Yusuf, the Deputy Director, Public Relations of 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, disclosed this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Tuesday.
Yusuf said that a total of nine children, including four girls and five boys aged between two and 13 years, were recovered from the suspected child trafficker.
He gave the name of the child trafficker as Mrs Rebecca Nwachi, 40.
“At about 6 a.m. on Jan. 2, 20202; troops of Sector 5 of Exercise Atilogwu Udo 1 deployed at Orba Check-point in Udenu council area of Enugu State (within Nsukka general area) intercepted above-named woman with nine children.
“The trafficker was intercepted in a luxurious bus with registration number ANAMBRA NEN 429 ZD belonging to FG Onyenwe Company.
“The woman claimed she was taking the children from an orphanage in Jos, Plateau State to another orphanage in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
“The woman produced a handwritten document signed by a pastor, showing a list of the names of the children, as an official document to facilitate the transportation of the children.
“However, during the preliminary investigation, a family member of one of the children who was contacted revealed that the family was not aware of how one of the victims, named Joshua got to Nsukka.
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“This was corroborated by other contacts that were thankful to Sector 5 army troops for intercepting the illegal trafficking,’’ he said.
The army spokesman said that the children, who were crying of hunger and claimed they had not eaten since yesterday, were consequently fed by troops with food.
“The suspected trafficker and the children have been handed over to Enugu State Police Command’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for further investigation before handing over to NAPTIP, for necessary action,’’ he added.