Armed gangs kidnap people, including priests, for ransom from villages and on highways mainly in the northwest, and the practice has spread to other parts of the country, increasing insecurity in Africa’s most populous country.
Zeta Ihidoro, general secretary of Sisters of Christ, the Redeemer General, said the four nuns were kidnapped as they were traveling from Rivers State to Imo for Thanksgiving Mass on Sunday.
“We ask fervent prayers for their speedy and safe release,” Ihduru said in a statement.
Imo police spokesman, Michael Apatam, said officers were pursuing the kidnappers.
“Now we’re on their way,” Apatam told CNN on Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to see that they (the nuns) are saved.”
In the northwest, the Nigerian army has launched an air offensive to eliminate the armed groups responsible for kidnapping citizens from villages and towns in the area.
“Specifically in the northwest, the impact of the strikes carried out by NAF (Nigerian Air Force) aircraft revealed the elimination of many terrorists and the destruction of their pockets,” the Nigerian Air Force said in a recent statement.
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