The National Police in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have confirmed the arrests two gangs of kidnappers in the city of Goma.
On Thursday, the police presented to the public the arrested kidnappers with the first gang comprising of five young men who confessed to having been arranging their own abductions in order to extort money from their families.
“Given the burden I had, I conceived the idea of seeing how to get something from my family and today we are here with great regret, we no longer know how to do it, I really ask for forgiveness. We had to receive a $100 note first, my mother made alerts and then I saw that it was not a good thing” confessed Michel Mushobwa, leader of this gang.
Meanwhile, the second group comprised of actual kidnappers who had been taking people into hostage and demanded ransoms among other numerous crimes committed.
“These bandits leave a very bad image of our city in public opinion. The police, the defense and security forces are hard at work to eradicate the practice of kidnapping in the city of Goma in any way,” the police in North Kivu said.
Meanwhile, earlier in the morning on Thursday, there was commotion at Airtel offices in Goma as a group young protesters demanded the telecommunications company to provide location details of kidnappers who had been using their network to communicate with and demand for ransoms from families of the abducted victims.
