
An expatriate worker and some workers returning from work with him on a convoy have been declared missing after their vehicles plunged into the Aleto River on Monday night while avoiding an ambush by suspected kidnappers.
The yet-to-be-identified expatriate and the others were returning from work on Monday night when the kidnappers attempted to abduct them at the bridge before Indorama Petrochemical along the East/West Road in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State.
It was while they were dodging the kidnappers who had laid ambush at the bridge that their vehicles, including a pickup truck, plunged into the Aleto River, which for years had been without protective metal railings or concrete barriers to shield vehicles and humans from falling into the river.
The kidnappers, according to a source came with a boat, which they planned to use to move their targets from the bridge to another location, declining to state the number of persons missing because he is sure of the figure.
On Tuesday, organized rescue efforts, to locate the victims were unsuccessful as the chairman of Eleme Local Government, Chief Brain Gokpa, who led the rescue team appealed to the navy and other rescue agencies to assist in the rescue efforts.
He also vowed that the kidnappers who carried out the attack won’t go unpunished, noting that they will be apprehended.
With the inability of the rescue team to retrieve the vehicle or locate the workers, they feared that they could be inside the river or taken by the current to outside the immediate area where the attack took place.
The new Rivers Commissioner of Police, Mr. Olugbenga Adepoju, who led a team of policemen to the scene commended Gokpa for his immediate response, while the council boss promised to empower more personnel to aid in the rescue efforts.
With construction work ongoing in the Eleme axis of the East/West Road,
following the poor state of the road and the portion near the bridge, hoodlums have for some time been launching hit-and-run attacks, often targeting workers coming late from work.
In 2023, a Hilux driver and a business owner, a man who owns businesses in Eleme plunged into the river due to the absence of a protective metal railing or concrete blocks on the bridge.