Suspected herdsmen have kidnapped 15 passengers along Enugu-Port Harcourt road, causing panic in Eke-Onuimo, Onuimo Local Government Area of Imo State.
It was learnt that the passengers were travelling in two separate buses when the herdsmen waylaid them along Arondizuogu-Okigwe stretch of the road.
A witness recounted that the herdsmen marched all passengers of one bus into the bush while some passengers in the second bus managed to escape. But the whereabouts of the passengers remain unknown.
A video has emerged of people believed to be the escaped passengers reappearing at the scene.
They include four women sobbing on the roadside as other travellers and passersby converged.
In the video circulating on WhatsApp, one distressed woman narrated her ordeal with the kidnappers.
She said, “They led us into a huge forest. They just point at you and tell you to follow them.
“There are some of us whom they sized up and said ‘these ones look like they have rich parents’. I told them I was pregnant, and that’s why they let me go.”
Police in Imo have yet to issue any statement on the incident as of the time of filing this report.
But the office of the Police Public Relations Officer, Bala Elkana, has responded to the circulating video on a WhatsApp group for police media.
“As regards the video making rounds on the Internet, we have not gotten any brief regarding the incident. We will keep [you] posted as soon as we get any credible information,” the office said.