Fear has gripped parents in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis of the Western Region following the kidnapping of two young girls within three days.
The first incident happened on Wednesday, August 15, when a 16-year-old senior high school student was kidnapped about a hundred meters from her house at New Site in Takoradi.
The girl who was abandoned the next day, Thursday dawn, close to her house, has been rendered dumb, perhaps traumatized by her ordeal.
She can only communicate by writing or texting on her phone. She drew a snake with two heads, wrote “two-headed snake, rituals, waist beads, mute and juju,” repeatedly on a paper handed her by her parents.
Her mother narrated the incident on Takoradi-based Connect FM.
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She said her daughter who will be going to SS3 in the next academic year, left home on August 15 to register her mobile SIM card at a shop close to their house.
She didn’t see her again until the next day. According to her, the girl was “very weak and unable to speak [when she was found]”.
Pieces of her hair at three different parts of her head had also been cut, she added.
The girl typed on the mother’s phone that a taxi with tinted glasses approached her and with the driver asking of her destination and that was the last thing she [the girl] remembers.
A comprehensive medical examination has since been conducted on the girl and the results concluded she is experiencing psychological trauma. The report also said she has physically not been harmed.
She is now receiving psychiatric help at the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital at Sekondi.
Her mother says all television sets in the house have been put off because immediately a picture of a snake or “juju” appears on the screen; she starts screaming and runs out of the house.
She also becomes agitated when she hears snake being mentioned, the mother narrated.
For now, the parents are praying and hoping that she regains her speech.
“My God will deliver my daughter,” she said, adding “and whatever evil they meant will turn to good…my God will not let them go unpunished”.
Just a day after the first girl was discovered, a 21-year-old lady at Nkroful Junction, also in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis, was also kidnapped.
The father says the daughter called him that day, August 17 sounding very agitated and screaming “dad” repeatedly, after which the line dropped and the phone was put off.
They did not hear from their daughter again until the next day when a man speaking pidgin English interspersed with poor Fanti used the daughter’s phone to call him and demanded a ransom of 4,000 cedis via a Tigo Mobile Money line as a precondition for releasing the daughter.
Sounding very distraught, the mother who is a petty trader told Connect FM her husband is currently unemployed.
In a bid to secure the release of their daughter, she said they quickly took steps and managed to raise 2,500 cedis in loans which have since been sent to the kidnappers but their daughter is yet to be released.
“Please help me to get my daughter back”, she pleaded as she wept uncontrollably.
On Tuesday evening, the kidnappers called again demanding a thousand cedis as transport fare to bring their daughter to them but the father told them he did not have money, the woman said.
As a result, their daughter is still in captivity.
When contacted, the Takoradi Market Circle police confirmed the issue and said the case is under investigation. They want better security in the metropolis.