A five-year-old boy with one of eye removed, was found on the side of the road near Kofa village in Konduga Local Government Area of Borno State last week. The victim, Ibrahim Modu,has been reunited with his family.

The boy’s mother, Aisha Bukar, spoke to our reporter Hadiza Dawud and said that she wasn’t at home when the incident occurred, but was told that the victim’s grandmother sent him and his elder brother out on an errand. Unknown men in a Keke Napep (3-wheel taxi), gave the elder brother twenty Naira and took Ibrahim with them.

The father, Brah Modu Kolo, said that the first he heard of the incident was when he went to visit his children in Kofa village, where they are living with his mother. On learning that his son was missing he went out to search, and within 24 hours the community leader informed him that a boy – who later turned out to be Ibrahim – had been taken to the teaching hospital.

The parents, who are IDPs, requested on government, NGOs and well-to-do individuals to come to their aid as they can’t afford to pay the hospital bill of forty thousand naira.

Missing children has become a big issue in northeast Nigeria.