In still mysterious circumstances, four female children, including two of common parents, have disappeared in Ogwashi-Uku, headquarters of Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State.
They are suspected to have been abducted by three ‘ strange women’ who had, just a week earlier, parked into a single room apartment in the neighbourhood.
The abductees, Ebube Nwafido ,( six years) and her sister, Miracle ( three) of common parents, and Chimanda ( seven,) and Excel, ( five), who are of different parents , were allegedly lured out of their playground by one of the women who promised to take them to a nearby superstore to buy them biscuits.
But that turned out to be to a hoax and decoy as they never returned.
Following the development, a search party was organized but the children had gone missing, as had the strange women.
Bose Nwafido, mother of two of the abductees, recalled that one of the women, claiming to have dysentery, had asked to be allowed to use her toilet, following which she was shown a nearby bushes in which she reportedly defecated.
On emerging from the bush, she reportedly claimed that she was going to a Point of Sales ( PoS) station to access money.
Mrs Nwafido added that , following the exit of the strange woman, she left home where the children were playing in the compound, to a programme.
According to her, she was still there when an emissary summoned her home, after the children had gone missing.
Sources said that the strange lady returned to the children as soon as Mrs Nwafido had gone to the programme, and successfully lured them away in the guise of buying them biscuits at a proximate superstore.
But they never returned.
It was learnt that a formal report of the incident has been lodged with the police,who are now investigating it.
The State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), SP Bright Edge, confirmed the development.
Edafe said the landlady of the rented apartment had been picked by the police for interrogation.
Ogwashi-Uku has, of late, been inflicted by an unprecedented level of insecurity typified by robberies, break- ins and kidnapping for ransom.
In reaction,the state police command recently mounted a resounding operation in which four suspected kidnappers, including their alleged lynch pin, were gunned down.
