Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 03:20 pm
The Katsina State government has rescued 31 victims of human trafficking, sold in Benin Republic and taken to Burkina Faso. The Director General, Media and publicity to the state government, Abdu Labaran Malumfashi, in a statement, said the victims were expected back in Katsina State today Tuesday.
According to him, the victims, seven of whom have been assisted to return to Nigeria by the Nigerian Embassy in Burkina Faso, have already arrived Katsina State.
Contrary to the news making the rounds in the social and new media, Labaran said “the 31 Katsina State citizens were not kidnapped but tricked and sold into slavery in Benin Republic to a Beninoise lady by one Alhaji Usman from Kankara town, now at large, but whose mobile phone numbers are in the possession of security and other government officials.
“The Benin lady thereafter took her ‘slaves’ to Gaoua, a town 150 kilometres from Ouagadougou, the Burkina Faso capital, where she kept them in servitude without food or money. The lady has been apprehended by the local authorities in Gaoua” he said.