Gunmen seize German professor, one other; kill 2 Nigerians

A German archaeologist, Prof. Peter Breunij and his associate Johannes Buringer have been abducted by yet to be identified gunmen at Jenjela village in Kagarko local government area of Kaduna State.

The suspected kidnappers killed two Nigerians among the people with the abducted Germans who attempted to thwart the abduction.

The professor is the head of a four-man team from the University of Frankfurt, Germany working in Nigeria in collaboration with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments and other institutions on the relics of the Nok culture in Nigeria.

The two ladies who are members of the team were however not taken by the abductors.

A witness who was part of the team working in collaboration with the Germans, said the incident happened when they had resumed for work  at a site at Jenjela village and had started working when five gunmen appeared from the bush and ordered them to lie down.

“They started coming one by one, the first two with machetes then the others with heavy guns.

There were many people at the site who were working. They ordered us  to lie face down  and shot into the air to scare people. It was at that point that they asked the professor and his associate to follow them and they led them to the other side of the road from where we were and began to lead them further into the bush,” the witness said.

He added that the two people who were killed met their end in their attempt to stop the abductors from leaving with the Germans, explaining, “One of us who was a hunter who they snatched a phone from asked us to go after the men but only one of us  followed him and the two men crossed the road chasing after the gunmen. “When the gunmen realized that the two men were following them, they turned and opened fire, killing the hunter and the other man.”

The witness said the matter had been reported to the police at Kagarko.

The Kaduna State Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Usman Aliyu confirmed the incident, saying the German professor and his team had been working on the site for the past 10 years and that a team of policemen from the special forces, the anti-cattle rustling squad and others had started a rescue mission.

Indication by press time yesterday was that the German Embassy in Abuja was yet to be in the picture of the abduction of the Germans. “I cannot confirm the report,” the embassy’s Deputy Ambassador, Regine Hess, told Daily Trust in a telephone interview.

Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim K. Idris has ordered the deployment of Police Special Forces to Southern Kaduna.

The Kaduna State commissioner of police Agyole Abeh explained in a statement that the force had been mandated to flush out perpetrators of the violence in Southern Kaduna and restore peace in the area.

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