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General News of Tuesday, 5 March 2002

Source: gna

Kidnapped boy reunites with family

A fifteen year old boy, who was kidnapped in November last year at Kwadaso in Kumasi by two unidentified men in a Lagos bound vehicle was at the weekend reunited with his family in Ghana.

Master Enoch Kofi Yeboah, who secured his freedom through Interpol, Accra, was on his way to school on November 20, at Kwadaso when the two men, who offered him a lift, took him to Lagos.

Enoch, who looked traumatised, said while the vehicle was in motion, he protested to the men about the route they were taken since that wasn't the way to his school.

He was warned that if he tried to scream he would be killed. He was later gagged and made to lay on the floor of the car, covered with a blanket, and he slept intermittently through the long journey.

He said he did not scream when they were at Police barriers because the car was often parked far from the barrier while the driver went to see officers at the check points with the vehicle left unchecked.

Enoch said he managed to escape after the car was parked near a town with only one of the kidnappers, who was keeping watch over him engaged in a conversation with some people near the car.

He fled from the area and later met a woman, who informed him that he was in Lagos. He managed to secure a lift to Benin where his benefactor also abandoned him. Enoch said he was led to an SOS village in Cotonou, where he wrote a letter to his mother Monica Mensah, a tutor in Kumasi, who then informed Interpol Accra.

Mr Kwaku Opare-Addo, Head of INTERPOL Accra said his outfit contacted the Ghana High Commissioner in Cotonou, who secured the release of Enoch from the SOS village and for a passage to Togo from where INTERPOL brought him to his mother in Accra.