Father Joseph Azubuike, a Nigerian priest who was kidnapped on July 10, has regained his freedom along with three other men travelling with him who were also taken.
Azubuike’s release, along with the three other kidnap victims, was confirmed to Crux by the Vicar General of the Abakaliki Diocese in Nigeria’s south-eastern Ebonyi state, Father Donatus O. Chukwu.
Chukwu explained that Azubuike had been kidnapped “in the evening hours of Monday, July 10, less than a kilometre from his rectory of St. Charles Parish, Mgbalaeze Isu, Onicha Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Southeast Nigeria. He was returning from a pastoral engagement when the incident happened. They were taken into a forest.”
The kidnappers demanded a 50 million Naira ransom (roughly US $66,000) or Azubuike would be killed, Chukwu said.
In a report titled, “The Economics of Nigeria’s Kidnap Industry,” the research firm SBM Intelligence estimated that between July 2021 and June 2022, no fewer than 3,420 people were abducted across Nigeria, with 564 others killed in violence associated with abductions.
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