Yunusa Adamu, an engineer based in Keke A, Kaduna State, went to check on his wife and their newly born twins at the hospital on Tuesday. By the time he returned home at night, his four older children, three girls and a boy, had gone missing.

The girls are 14, 12 and 9 years old respectively. The boy will turn two in December.

Adamu, who is the youth chief of Keke A, a community in the Chikun Local Government Area (LGA) of the state, suspects kidnappers abducted his children.

He told FIJ on Wednesday afternoon that the children’s shoes were found in a gutter in front of the house. Their toilet door was also broken down.

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FIJ learnt that the kidnappers had not contacted the father or anyone else yet while the children’s whereabouts remain unknown.

According to Adamu, his younger brother, who lives with him, saw the children return from school some minutes past 6 pm on Tuesday.

He said the brother was at home at the time of the incident but was asleep and did not know when the children left the house.

In his narration to FIJ, Adamu said, “My wife was in the hospital with our twins who are sick and on oxygen. Today (Wednesday) is their fourth day in the hospital. I visited them on Tuesday.

“My brother stays with me, and when I was at the hospital, he was at home. He was there when the children came back from school around past 6 pm.

“When I was on my way from the hospital, I called home to know what they needed for the house, and the children said they had eaten and that they only needed bread for breakfast which they would take to school today (Wednesday).”

Adamu stopped by his farmhouse located on the same street as his house to feed his fish before heading home, he told FIJ.

“I rear fish. I had to stop by to feed them because they had not eaten all day and I bought their food on my way home on Tuesday. After spending like 40 to 50 minutes there, while also gisting with my friend who had accompanied me to the farm, I told him to let me go and check on my children,” Adamu said.

When he got home, the children were not there to welcome him. And when he checked their room, they were nowhere to be found.

He said the kidnappers would probably have taken his brother had he not been fast asleep on the floor of his room, where he wrapped himself with a blanket.

“When they (the kidnappers) were there, the boy was in his room. He did not sleep on the bed. He slept on the floor and covered himself with a blanket. If you enter the room, you’ll think it’s just a blanket. I checked the children in their rooms, but they were not there. I checked their mother’s kitchen because she’s a baker, but they were not there, too,” Adamu added.

“When I asked him where his sisters were, he said he left them in their room while he was in his room sleeping. Apart from that, he does not know anything because even when I was asking him, he was saying they were in their room.

“Another thing is that the door in their toilet was completely broken down. I think the children ran to the toilet to hide, and the kidnappers used force to break it down.

“That was when I started calling on neighbours and the attention of security agencies.”

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THE SEARCH FOR THE MISSING CHILDREN

“We searched and searched,” Adamu told FIJ.

While he and his neighbours checked the area to see if they would find his four children, they saw their shoes inside a gutter in front of the house.

Adamu said he and some community men with vigilantes tried to trace the children.

“The police and military around the axis responded immediately we notified them. But even when they came, it was too late because even we had looked for the children and the kidnappers for about six to seven kilometres but no trace of them,” Adamu told FIJ.

“We were outside up until 4:30 am before leaving that area, and still no trace of them, and no call from anyone yet.”

Adamu said this was not the first time something of this nature would be happening in the area.

“However, it’s been a long time since something like this happened because the community took some security measures. It’s unfortunate that this happened yesterday,” said the father.

FIJ could not reach Mansir Hassan, the State Police public relations officer, for comments on Wednesday afternoon as his call went unanswered. He had also not responded to the text and WhatsApp messages sent to him at press time.

Abimbola Abatta is a reporter with FIJ, writing reports in partnership with Report for the World which matches local newsrooms with talented emerging journalists to report on under-covered issues around the globe.