Governor Aminu Bello Masari of Katsina State yesterday night received 15 kidnapp victims (13 women, a toddler and a baby) released by their abductors, after 44 days in captivity in a camp in the expansive Zamfara Forest better known as Dansadau Forest.
The farest, which traverses many states in the North West, is also known as Rugu Forest in Katsina State and Kuyenbana Forest in Kaduna State. Spokesperson to the governor, Abdu Labaran Malumfashi stated in a statement.
The victims, including a two-day old baby and a one-year old, were brought to the Governor at the Government House by the Caretaker Committee Chairman of Jibiya Local Government area, Alhaji Haruna Musa Mota at 1.30am. All the freed captives were from Mallamawa village in Jibiya local government area.
Recounting their harrowing experiences in the hands of their abductors, the 13 women, mostly teenagers, claimed to be ill treated by the bandits who fed them with only half a ration of half cooked and barely grounded corn twice daily.
According to the released captives, their captors did not only keep on threatening to kill them for the failure of their relatives to pay ransom demanded by the bandits, but also shot guns in the air constantly within close proximity to them with a view to scaring and intimidating them.
Murja, the mother of the one-day old baby girl, said that they were kept in a camp which initially contained 150 captives but which gradually shrank to only the 13 of them who were the last to be released.
She claimed that they never believed they would regain freedom as their abductors were always in a nasty mood, telling them (captives) that they would shoot them since their relatives had failed to pay for their release.
After receiving the freed captives, elated Governor Masari disclosed that the 13 women plus the two infants were the last set of victims from Katsina State known to be in captivity anywhere.
He said that now that all the kidnapp victims from the state had been released, the next phase of sustaining the peace in Katsina is the surrender of arms and ammunitions by the bandits, to be followed by their rehabilitation and integration.
The last phase, the Governor added, would involve further provision of aminities like schools, clinics, roads, water points for human and animal use as well as re-demacation of cattle routes, encroached by farmers and converted into farm lands.
Added to these measures, would be regular engagements between officials of Katsina and Zamfara states with their counterparts from Maradi Region of the neighbouring Niger Republic, one of which is expected to take place at the end of the week on Katsina State, Governor Masari added.
