The Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), Lagos Border Patrol Command at Seme in Badagry, has intercepted a six-month-old baby and three others suspected to be victims of human trafficking.
Comptroller Peter Adache, the controller of the command, who disclosed this while speaking with journalists in Badagry on Friday, said the victims were intercepted with their traffickers, a couple.
Mr Adache said the victims were intercepted by operatives on Monday around 1:30 p.m., along Kankon Owode Road in Badagry.
According to the controller, they were travelling to Burkina Faso through the Republic of Benin without any relevant documents.
Mr Adache said that during interrogation, it was revealed that one of the suspected traffickers, who is a food vendor and citizen of Burkina Faso, lured them to travel with her to the country.
“She called her husband, who is a citizen of the Benin Republic, and they arranged how to transport the three ladies and the child to Burkina Faso.
“The travelling expenses and feeding for the six persons were paid by the couple,” he said.
The controller said the victims would be handed over to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) to help reunite them with their families.
One of the suspected victims (name withheld), who is a mother of the six-month-old child, said she and her child were abandoned by her husband, hence her decision to travel with the couple to survive hardship.
Suspected victims of human trafficking were later handed over to Ibraheem Ogunbiyi, the assistant director and head of the counselling and rehabilitation unit of NAPTIP, Lagos zonal command.
(NAN)