ABDUCTION incidents by people who use vehicles and firearms (pistols) at Kibirizi Ward and various areas of Kigoma Region have started to raise fear among residents in the areas.

Philemon Makungu, the regional police commander, confirmed the incidents saying that the police force was executing an intense investigation.

He urged people to stop sending the ransom funds whenever the abductors demand payment as doing so fuels more kidnappings, bolstering the ranks of criminal gangs.

“We urged people to ensure that whenever they come across such a situation, they should report to the police for immediate measures to be taken,” he said.

He also asked those who report to the police and received unpleasant treatment to record names of the police officers for the force to act upon them, after such incidents were ignored.

The incidents are reported to have surged since May, with kidnappers often spray the victims to make them sleep harder before stealing money and other properties.

Ramadhani Shabani (21), living at Bushabani Street at Kibirizi ward said that as one of the victims he was abducted by unknown people using a tinted black car.

On May 14 at around 21hrs while he was coming from his grandma’s place where he installed solar lamps at Buronge he was abducted by such people.

“I remember when I entered main road I saw a black car parked on the side of the road and before I approached it, strong lights faced me, making me lose control.

Three thugs came up and started to attack, hitting him with hand held gas tubes on the neck until he lost consciousness, he narrated.

He didn’t know what went on until waking up in a room, hearing the voices of a lot of people, with eyes strapped with a cloth.

The abductors then removed the cloth and demanded vital phone numbers of family members, after which they covered his face again.

He lost consciousness again and later found himself receiving treatment at the regional referral hospital of Maweni, his relatives telling him that he had been abducted for 11 days.

Most of the time the kidnappers gave him flour, maize bran and water.

Bilali Shaban, the brother’s victim said the family was in fear after realising it was getting night and their relative had not returned home. They first called his grandmother who responded that he had left the place some hours earlier.

 “We then rushed out to start seeking help from neighbours who joined us to search for our relative, we searched everywhere in police stations, hospital and health centres but we didn’t find him,” he said.

He explained that two days later at night; he received a phone call from a new number three times but didn’t take the call due to tiredness and when he woke up he found a strange message from the number.

“The message read that ‘the person who you are looking for we have him, and if you want him alive send 2.5m/- or else we will kill him and take various body organs including kidney and liver,” he said.

That morning he went to report the SMS to the police station where officers demanded 50,000/- for tracking the number but later didn’t bring anything on the whereabouts of the abductors.

The abductors continued to send frightening SMS which the family also reported to the police but nothing came out of it.

 “When reached May 24, the date the abductors gave us a deadline to pay the money, they called us and told us that we should get prepared for a tragedy if we fail to send the amount before the end of the day. We sat down as a family to ensure that we got the money and succeeded in sending 2,554,000/-,” he narrated.

Then the following day the abductors called them to go and fetch their relative at Msimba village where there is a dump and they went fast and found him tied up with a string and his face covered with a cloth.

 “We untied him and rushed to the central police station where we got a PF3 form before heading to the referral hospital where he was admitted.

“This so worrying, incidents like these are still occurring in the society and in our area,’ he said, with similar incidents narrated by other persons, including the case of Lilenga Lilenga (49), a Mwandiga a fisherman who got lost on May 11, at the same Kibirizi ward.

Reporting the matter to the police similarly did not help, so the family opted to announce it in media outlets and social media platforms.

Family members were still seeking help, urging the government to intervene in the matter and support search efforts to find the family member.

Joyce Christant, a resident of Gungu said that her 20-year-old daughter has also been missing, while police cooperation is abysmally low.

“My child was taken on May 14, this year at around 2.30 pm when unknown people arrived at a shop she was supervising and asked for water and when he took the water to them outside in the car she didn’t come back,” she said.

According to her, despite the abductors demanding 2.5m/- and being sent to them, they didn’t bring back her daughter.

Hamis Kalimwagu, the Butunga Street chairman, said abduction incidents were increasing in the area with thugs breaking houses to steal properties and livestock, as well as harm people.

The incidents are partly being fuelled by hardships due to the suspension of fishing activities in Lake Tanganyika, with crowds of young and often violent men having nothing to do.