Takoradi kidnappings: Families demand clarity amid reports of possible rescue
The families of the three Takoradi kidnapped girls have given the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the Criminal Investigative Department (CID) up to 8:00 am today, Wednesday, to either deny or confirm media reports that the girls have been rescued.
A pro-government newspaper, the Daily Guide, reported through its online portal that the girls have been rescued and are receiving medical attention somewhere in Accra.
The girls, Ruth Quayson, Priscilla Blessing Bentum and Priscilla Koranchie are believed to have been kidnapped between August 2018 and January 2019.
The main suspect in the kidnapping, Sam Udoetuk Wills is currently before a court after he escaped from jail in December 2018 following his first arrest.
A spokesman for families of the kidnapped girls, Michael Hayford Grant, together with Alexander Kuranchie, a father of one of the abducted girls, Priscila Kuranchie, tells Citi News such unconfirmed reports are only compounding their anxiety.
“We want the IGP and the CID boss to come out to tell us that either what the Daily Guide is saying is true or lies. We want to know,” Michael Hayford Grant said to Citi News.
He says they will storm the Western Regional Police Command if the rumour is not clarified.
“Also we are going to the Regional Police Commander’s office in Sekondi District so that whatever the Daily Guide is saying, they will inform us or tell us whether it is true or false so that they can know the steps to take. And if it is true, we want the truth.”
Alexander Kuranchie said he had been making calls to security agencies for clarity but to no avail.
“I have been calling the CID boss and a friend of mine at BNI [Bureau of National Investigations]. They tell me they are still working on it and that very soon I will hear good news so I shouldn’t worry but it is not as easy as people see it.”
Before the rescue reports, the families of the three girls said they will on May 2, 2019, storm the Police CID headquarters to demand proof that the girls are alive.
This is after the police service came out on April 2 to say it knew the location of the girls.
“It has taken us over three months to even identify where the ladies are and what we don’t want to do is to do anything that will jeopardise the safety of that,” COP Maame Yaa Tiwaa Addo-Danquah, the Director General of CID said at the time.