Nigerian Police Locate Kidnapped Youth Service Recruits but Say Landmines Block Rescue

Nigerian authorities say they have pinpointed the hideout where 19 young men and women preparing for their mandatory national service are being held captive, but have been unable to launch a rescue mission because the site is believed to be rigged with explosives.

Audu Bosso, the police commissioner overseeing the operation, told journalists that aerial surveillance had successfully tracked down the camp where the recruits were taken following last week's abduction in Imo state, located in Nigeria's south-east. He explained that drones provided a precise fix on the location, giving security forces a rare advantage in a case that has gripped the nation.

However, that advantage has so far proven impossible to exploit. According to Bosso, intelligence gathered by investigators indicates that the camp has been seeded with improvised explosive devices, turning any ground assault into an extremely dangerous proposition. "The drone actually showed us exactly their location," he said, describing the discovery as a breakthrough tempered by a serious operational obstacle. He confirmed that bulldozers and armoured vehicles are being moved into position as police prepare for what would be a high-risk rescue attempt.

The police have not made public where the camp is situated, nor have they named any individual or organisation suspected of carrying out the kidnapping. Investigators continue to work on establishing who is behind the attack, which occurred as the recruits travelled through the south-east.

The group was seized on Thursday while en route from Ibadan, a major city in south-western Nigeria, to orientation camps in Abia and Akwa Ibom states. Their buses were ambushed by gunmen near Umunoha, a community in Imo state. The victims were prospective members of the National Youth Service Corps, a scheme that requires most Nigerian university and polytechnic graduates to complete a year of service.

Under the NYSC programme, participants — known as corps members — are posted to states across the country, where they work in various capacities and contribute to community projects. A central aim of the initiative is to build bridges between Nigeria's many ethnic and regional groups by exposing young people to parts of the country beyond their home areas.

For families, the wait has been agonising. Omotosho Adewale, whose child is among those being held, told the BBC that the abductors had demanded a ransom of 50 million naira — roughly $37,680 or £28,440 — a sum he said he has no way of raising. Speaking through tears, he described his anguish. "There's no peace of mind. I've not eaten in three days," he said, appealing to the government to intervene and bring the captives home.

His account underscores the painful dilemma facing relatives of kidnapping victims across Nigeria. Although paying ransoms is illegal and the authorities routinely warn families against it, many feel they have little choice but to find the money, fearing that delay could cost a loved one's life. The tension between official policy and the desperate reality on the ground remains one of the most difficult aspects of Nigeria's kidnapping epidemic.

Kidnapping for ransom has become a persistent security crisis in Africa's most populous nation, carried out by both criminal syndicates and armed militant groups. The problem is most closely associated with parts of northern Nigeria, where mass abductions have occurred with alarming frequency. The Imo state case has therefore drawn intense attention, because large-scale kidnappings have historically been less common in the south.

The incident has also reignited debate about the safety of the NYSC scheme, which sends hundreds of thousands of young graduates to unfamiliar regions every year. Critics argue that the programme's design puts participants at risk when they are deployed to areas experiencing instability. The NYSC has said in the past that it will not send corps members to locations it deems high-risk because of violence or the threat of abduction, and most of south-eastern Nigeria had not previously fallen into that category.

In the south-east, some past abductions have been attributed to separatist movements, including the Indigenous People of Biafra. IPOB has long campaigned for a separate state in the region, and its activities have contributed to a climate of insecurity in several south-eastern states. However, authorities have not drawn any link between the current abduction and that group or any other organisation, leaving the identity and motives of the perpetrators unresolved.

The case has renewed calls for reforms to the national service programme and to Nigeria's broader approach to protecting travellers on the country's roads. With rescue efforts complicated by the suspected presence of hidden explosives, the fate of the 19 recruits remains uncertain, and their families continue to endure an ordeal that has become all too familiar to many Nigerians.