A team of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) and the Department of State Services (DSS) has rescued a Burundian woman and her three children from traffickers in Umunoha village, Mbaitoli Council of Imo State where they were held bound and exploited.
Director-General of NAPTIP, Dr. Fatima Waziri-Azi, disclosed this in a communiqué issued yesterday in Abuja. She said investigation showed that the victims have refugee status in Kenya, but were trafficked to Lagos by human traffickers in September 2021 and thereafter moved to Umunoha in Imo State where they were confined and forced into menial labour on daily basis just to feed.
But they were rescued during a sting operation carried out on their holding mud house by the combined team where they were cramped due to a tipoff by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees UNHCR) at NAPTIP headquarters.
“The yet to be identified human trafficker seized their travel documents and other valuable personal belongings in the process,” she said.
While commending stakeholders who provided information and assisted in ensuring a successful operation that led to the rescue of the victims, she assured that those behind the victims’ ordeal would be identified and prosecuted.
“I have directed our operatives to thoroughly investigate how the victims got to the village. The traffickers will be identified and made to face justice,” she added.
Imo State Commander of NAPTIP, Earnest Ogbu, said the victims’ account indicated that they might have been deceived by the trafficker into coming to Nigeria and a remote village in Imo State without resistance.
