Anambra State Police Command, on Thursday, paraded an eighty-year-old woman, Mrs Chidi Felicia Nwafor, and thirty-nine-year-old Madam Rejoice Raymond, who are natives of Umunya in Oyi LGA of Anambra State for child trafficking and torture.
The duo according to the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) of the command, CSP, Haruna Mohammed (CSP), were, however, nabbed at the Federal Housing Estate, 3-3 area of Onitsha, the commercial city of the state.
Mohammed said that the suspects allegedly confined three children (2 boys and a girl) inside different rooms at NO.13 Akunwanta Mbamalu Street, Federal Housing Estate, Onitsha, and subjected them to physical and emotional torture without food and inflicted several wounds on their bodies, leaving them unconscious and at the point of death.
He said that victims who were badly battered with lacerations all over their bodies and one with a broken arm were found in the pool of their blood, rescued and rushed to the hospital for medical attention.
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Exhibits allegedly recovered at the scene included some fetish substances, blood-stained canes, concoctions and other incriminating items. He said that preliminary investigations revealed that the three children were allegedly sold to the suspects by a notorious child trafficking kingpin named Sabina Izoura who has been on the police wanted list for child trafficking, child stealing and forgery.
“Further investigations also revealed that the suspect was involved in unlawful adoptions, using forged police reports, forged authorisation letters from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and sworn court affidavits, to sell children stolen from all parts of the country to her waiting customers, both within and outside Nigeria; including a recent attempt to smuggle out two children (a boy and a girl) allegedly stolen from Niger State since 2018.
“Meanwhile all the children recovered by the police are presently under the protective care of the Anambra State Ministry for Social Welfare, Women’s and Children’s Affairs, pending when their biological parents will surface.“
“Investigations are still ongoing and efforts are being intensified to apprehend other accomplices in order to bring them to justice.” He said.
The major suspect, Madam Rejoice Raymond, while speaking to a journalist shortly after being paraded, said that she adopted the three children at the cost of three million, fifty thousand naira with every document from the State Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.
She said that she adopted the children as her children and have been treating them as her biological children.
Asked why the bruises on the children body, she said she was not aware of such bruises until a day before her arrest by the police.
According to her, the police should rather investigate the ministry of women and children affairs and not her because her transaction was certified by documents in the said Ministry.
“Let us meet in court. I adopted the children legally with the necessary documents. So I am not afraid of the allegation.
“You Journalists and the police should rather investigate the ministry of women and children affairs and find out what is happening there and not me,” she boasted.
Meanwhile, the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Mr Monday Bala Kuryas, has enjoined Ndi Anambra and the general public to apprehend or report at the nearest police station, or call police emergency number 07039194332, whenever they see Mrs Sabina Izuorah, formerly of Social welfare Dept Awka South LGA but recently transferred to Social Welfare Department Ihiala LGA presently at large and evading police arrest in connection with the offence of child stealing/ trafficking, forgery and perjury.
Tribune
