Muhammed Abubakar, Reporting
Families of the abducted Kaduna-bound train passengers have vowed to embark on street protests as well as to occupy government facilities in Abuja and Kaduna to demand the immediate release of the remaining 50 passengers still in terrorists’ stranglehold.
Stonix News reports that the next week Tuesday makes it 100 days the Abuja-Kaduna AK-9 train was ambushed lead to the killing of nine and the abduction of 63 passengers.
The families made their intention known in Kaduna while addressing newsmen on Thursday.
One of the leaders of the victims’ families, Dr Abdulaziz Atta, said they were worried and afraid of losing their family members who are still with the terrorists.
“We were shock with reports of snake bites and gunshots. So, we decided that we would be staging a sit-down and occupy protest at public facilities until our loved ones are rescued.
“We read from the media, report that one of our loved ones, Al-Amin was shot and that, it was an accidental discharge by one of the non-state actors guarding our loved ones, but the key question now is the state of health of the person that has gunshot wounds.
“There is no antibiotics, nobody to remove the bullets from his body, just imagine the current situation he will be in the bush.
“He needs urgent support, if he is not brought out of the bush, we may lose him.
“To be fair, we are seeing some of the outcomes of the government’s efforts. We have seen 11 of our loved ones that have been released, and from the press statement that was released from Garba Shehu on behalf of the President, he made it clear that their children were released to them for us to have our loved ones.
“We heard it from the highest authority, we know that the government is working on it, yes they are working on it, but what we are demanding is that they should hasten their release, every single moment they spend in the bush is dangerous .
“The agents of government that are involved in this negotiation need to do more, what we want simply is that, we want our loved ones out, we have kids as you have heard earlier on, as young as three years old and from the feedback we had, these kids are unattended to, we have women injured, we have aged women and men, those people should be brought out,” he noted.
Atta maintained that by next week Tuesday, which is going to be 100 days that they have been in captivity, they were planning to do a physical protest.
“We will be having sitting in key govt facilities, we planned to sit there till our loved ones are out.
“So, we are changing our strategies, we will change our strategies from the media conference, the media have been excellent to us, but now we are going to move out physically for people to see us on the streets,” he said.