Shocking: IDP camp where parents are offered ₦500,000 to sell their children�

Despite the harrowing ordeals that made them occupants of an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp, a number of parents in the place live in fear of child-thieves.

HumAngle, an investigative website, reported the pitiable story of Janet Mufayin, whose son was believed to have been stolen and sold to wealthy patrons of the child trafficking ring.

Janet stays in the Tse Yendev IDP camp, located in Makurdi, the capital of Benue State. She and others at the camp had survived the violent attacks and killings that sacked them from their homes.

They are victims of the intermittent clashes between natives and Fulani cattle herders.

On a fateful day, a strange man reportedly snatched Janet’s children from their tent while she was doing some chores not far from where she left them.

A woman who saw the strange man with some little children, but didn’t know their parents, raised an alarm in the camp about the mystery man. Hearing that, Janet’s mind quickly went to her children. children. A search party was formed and all but one of Janet’s children were found. Someone told them a man who claimed to be the boy’s father had taken him away on a motorcycle.

Grief-stricken Janet narrated her ordeal: “My child was taken away from me in this place. My child did not go anywhere before going missing. It was in this place!” She described her three-year-old son as being “lively and quite talkative but would be reserved if he didn’t know you before.”

Few weeks after Janet’s saga, another woman Mercy Daniel lost one of two children to kidnapping in the camp. A month after, Mercy’s second child mysteriously went missing. Her grief multiplied.

This time around, the police rounded up four men suspected to belong to a child trafficking gang. Still the children were not found.

In another incident, a would-be victim Liamgee Tsav was only able to prevent his children’s theft by sheer luck. The targets were Liamgee’s six children from his second wife. He was at the camp one morning when an unknown man approached him with a surprise deal.

The man asked if he was willing to sell any of his children to a woman in Abuja for ₦500,000. Liamgee later reported the encounter to the camp’s chairman, who urged him to play along.

He had the man’s voice recorded and had played the same to the camp chairman and some other persons. Liamgee kept engaging the man, based on the camp chairman’s instruction.

At a point, the man led him to speak to the Abuja-based woman, who wanted to buy the children. The woman reportedly told him she had sent the money while awaiting his decision.

But one day, he had his phone forcefully taken from him.

A woman, who he owed ₦9,000 for the tubers he purchased from her, took his phone and threatened to sell it to defray his debt.

Liamgee’s persuasion to the woman to let him have the memory card containing the recording of the suspected kidnapper, raised her suspicion.

She wondered why he desperately wanted the memory card, and she decided to listen to the recordings.

After she did, the woman concluded that Liamgee was planning to sell his children. She raised an alarm that led to Liamgee and the said trafficker’s arrest. Liamgee was subsequently released after spending some time in detention, through the help of the camp chairman who testified to be privy to the recordings.

The suspected trafficker, identified as Felix was also released later and he had not been seen since his release.