Kaduna, 20 January, 2020 / 7:27 am (ACI Africa).
One of the four Nigerian first-year philosophy seminarians abducted January 8 from the Kaduna-based Good Shepherd Major Seminary was freed Saturday, January 18, having been dumped by the kidnappers along Nigeria’s Kaduna-Abuja highway. He was rescued by some Good Samaritans and he is receiving medication at a Catholic health facility, multiple sources have told ACI Africa.
The seminarians, Pius Kanwai, 19; Peter Umenukor, 23; Stephen Amos, 23; and Michael Nnadi, 18, were abducted on the night of January 8 in a 30-minute operation that saw the kidnappers, dressed in military uniform and armed with guns, force their way into the Catholic seminary premise in Kaduna State that was housing 268 major seminarians.
“I can confirm the report that one of the seminarians was released yesterday,” a source in Nigeria told ACI Africa Sunday night and added, “the seminarian was found along the road and helped by passersby because he was not in good shape.”
The freed seminarian is fighting for his life “in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at St. Gerard’s Catholic Hospital in Kaduna,” the source said in a telephone interview.
“From the time of the abduction, this seminarian was stubborn to the abductors; he could hold on anything he could find, resisting the kidnapping,” a source in Kaduna narrated and added in reference to the January 8 incident at Good Shepherd Major Seminary, “in retaliation, the seminarian was beaten up badly resulting in some fractures of his body parts, yet they took him still.”
