SUSPECTED militants and pirates, last week, in Akwa Ibom State, abducted several market women, whisked them to their hideouts in the creeks, where they forced them at gunpoint to take their clothes off, defiled and took several pictures of their womanhood with their phones.
NDV learned that the women from different communities in the state and neighbouring Cross River State were returning from Nwaniba community market in Uruan local government of the state when over 10 masked men ambushed the two speedboats separately conveying them, commandeered them to their camp. They dispossessed them of their money and other valuables in the den before humiliating them.
Reports said the women were heartlessly beaten and sexually abused by the gangsters, who inflicted machete cuts on the women that refused to succumb to their inordinate sexual desire. They removed the outboard engines of the two speedboats that carried the women and fled their camp, leaving them behind.
No official complaint yet — Police
The Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, DSP Chukwu Ikechukwu, said: “Failure of the community to file the matter with the Police in the area was hampering investigation and action on the problem.”
He, therefore, advised the public to always volunteer information on crimes and criminal elements to security agencies for prompt action.
Contacted on the matter, the Divisional Police Officer, DPO, in-charge of the area, Superintendent of Police (SP), Sunday Effiong, who described the incident as pathetic, also said that it had not been reported to the Police.
We were sexually abused —Mrs. John
One of the victims, Mrs. Christiana Sunday John, who spoke through an interpreter, lamented amid tears: “We were badly treated, our womanhood was abused. I joined the second speed boat going back home when midway into our journey; another speed boat from nowhere blocked us.
”To my greatest surprise, the boat was conveying over 10 hefty masked men, two of the
