By Frontline Reporters

The Imo State Police Command has located the camp where 19 prospective National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members abducted in the state are believed to be held, but security operatives have delayed moving in after receiving intelligence that the area may have been planted with improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

The Imo State Commissioner of Police, CP Audu Garba Bosso, disclosed this on Saturday while providing an update on the ongoing search-and-rescue operation.

Bosso said security operatives, after trailing the abductors into the bush, deployed drones on Friday to identify their exact location.

He, however, explained that the security agencies were exercising caution because intelligence indicated that the suspected camp had been mined with IEDs.

“Any moment, we’ll still move into the bush. Yesterday, we were in the bush; we trailed them up to a particular location.

“But at that point in time, we couldn’t move in to where the coordinates showed us where they are because we ran drones yesterday. The drone actually showed us exactly their location.

“But our predicament is that, with the intelligence we have, the camp is mined with IEDs,” the commissioner said.

Bosso said the security agencies were preparing to move into the area with heavy equipment, including bulldozers and armoured personnel carriers (APCs), to facilitate the safe rescue of the victims.

“We are moving in there with high-velocity vehicles, that is, bulldozers. We’re moving in with bulldozers and APCs to see how we’re going to rescue these victims unhurt,” he added.

The development came two days after gunmen abducted prospective corps members travelling from Ibadan, Oyo State, to their NYSC orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The victims were travelling in two buses when the attackers struck along the Owerri-Onitsha Road in the Umunoha area of Imo State on Thursday.

The Managing Director of Uko Akwa Ibom Motors Nigeria Limited, Isiah Akpan, had said the abductors took 19 passengers, all prospective corps members, into the bush.

According to him, the drivers escaped and alerted security personnel at a nearby checkpoint, prompting security agencies to launch a search of the area.

The abductors have reportedly demanded N50m for each of the 19 victims, amounting to N950m. Some of the families have reportedly been contacted through the mobile phones of their abducted relatives.

A mother of one of the victims, Mrs Oladosu, had said the abductors contacted her family through her daughter’s phone and that the family was able to see some of the victims during a video call.

The Imo State Police Command had earlier announced that 10 victims had been rescued. However, the command’s spokesperson, Henry Okoye, said he could not confirm whether the rescued persons were among the abducted prospective corps members.

The latest development suggests that security operatives have narrowed down the location of the remaining victims as efforts intensify to secure their safe release.