Almost 24 hours after undisclosed number of passengers were reportedly kidnapped from a train station at Igueben in Edo State, the Nigerian Railway Corporation(NRC) is yet to disclose passenger manifest and actual number of persons in the facility when the abductors struck.
Yakubu Mahmoud,Spokesman of the NRC did not respond to phone calls and text message when contacted.
The state police command, in a press statement signed by Chidi Nwabuzor, stated that the incident happened at about 4.00pm on Saturday .
According to the statement, the kidnappers who were armed with AK-47 rifles, invaded the train station and shot sporadically into the air before herding an unspecified number of intending travellers into the bush.
The statement added that in the process, some of the passengers sustained bullet wounds, just as the police disclosed that bush combing and rescue operations had begun to rescue those that were kidnapped.
After a 2022 attack on a Kaduna bound train leaving many dead , injured and over 60 persons kidnapped the NRC declared submission of national identity numbers (NIN) as a criteria for passengers to travel along the Abuja – Kaduna route.
The last Kaduna train attack which happened after 2 failed attempts and recent Edo attack on passengers, yesterday, have reinforced doubts over federal government assurances of rail passenger safety and security.
