NELSPRUIT – No suspects have as yet been arrested with regard to a kidnapping that occurred in the city last week. This was confirmed to Lowvelder by Mpumalanga police spokesman Col Leonard Hlathi.
Two teenagers aged 18 and 19 were abducted last week when they went to a park in West Acres. They were being targeted as one of their fathers had a business in Mozambique and the culprits thought the other was his brother.
The first teen was released near Nelsville and the one whom they had sought, was finally released when the suspects found out the police were after them.
According to recent statistics released by NYA International, a specialist crisis-prevention and response consultancy, Africa accounted for 36 per cent of kidnap and ransom incidents globally, putting it well ahead of the Americas (27 per cent) and Asia (19 per cent).
The sad fact is that kidnapping for ransom has become something of a burgeoning business in certain African countries, with Nigeria alone accounting for 26 per cent of all global incidents in the first half of 2013. Other African countries where the practice is growing, include Somalia, Egypt, Kenya, Mali and Mozambique.
Yet the crisis in Mozambique is sure to see the country’s statistics go sky high as more incidents are being reported on a weekly basis.
Recently a family decided to move to Nelspruit for safety reasons, and in the process, their brother was kidnapped for ransom in Mozambique. The abductors kept him in a coffin, to which he was confined for a full three weeks.
They released him only when his family paid the US$1,5 million ransom. In another incident a woman was abducted in Maputo. She was apparently one of five who were kept in a house and regularly saw policemen visiting her captors. When her family finally paid the ransom, she was also released.
According to a new report from the Rigzone website looking at the whole of Africa, the hot spot for kidnapping is the coastline of the Indian Ocean, which averages 95 incidents a month.
Somali pirates hijacking merchant ships in the Indian Ocean frequently take more foreigners hostage in a single month than all other kidnappers in the world combined.
The next on the list is Nigeria, where abduction of foreigners and journalists continues to be a problem, particularly in the Niger Delta with the threat from both militants and armed gangs.
Ransoms for foreign nationals range from $28 000 to $204 000.
