At last,, 3 year old British girl released

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At last,, 3 year old British girl released

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The phone rings. She picks it in expectation. And then she hears the
voices she doesn’t want to hear: her kidnapped daughter crying in the
background; the kidnappers making some demands she can neither meet nor
handle. She is clearly a woman in torment.
The phone rings again.
She picks it. It’s THISDAY correspondent on the line early in the
morning. Not exactly the call she is expecting, but she needs every
call now if it would brighten her day.
“Yes?” she asks.
“Any news on your daughter’s whereabouts?” THISDAY asks.
“Nothing yet. I’m in touch with her captors, but there is no headway yet.” She sighs.
It’s
evening. The phone rings again. Eagerly, she picks it. It is THISDAY on
the line again. She lets out her frustration. “Please leave me alone,”
she pleads. “I am upset. I am not in a frame of mind to answer your
questions. Please leave me alone. They may harm my daughter. Anytime
they call me, I hear her crying in the background.”
It's now
midnight. The phone does not ring again. It has been switched off.
Oluchi Hill, mother of the three-year-old girl, Margaret, kidnapped by
unknown gunmen on her way to school in Port Harcourt, Rivers State,
last Thursday, can no longer be reached.
But it is good news this
time around. At last, Margaret is free. Last night, true to the
prediction of the Commissioner of Police (Rivers), Mr. Felix Ogbaudu,
Margaret breathed the air of freedom. The details were sketchy, but
government officials confirmed that the girl had been released to the
State Security Services (SSS). Thereafter, she was re-united with her
family, according to Ogbaudu.
Her release came four days after she
was kidnapped by unknown gunmen on her way to school in Port Harcourt,
Rivers State. Her father, Mike, is a British expatriate oil worker
while the mother is a Nigerian.

ThisDay newspapers, Monday July 9, 2007

 Nigerian gunmen released a British toddler on Sunday, days after she was kidnapped in the country's oil-rich south.

Margaret Hill, 3, was reunited with her parents and her British father
Mike Hill told Sky News by telephone that no ransom was paid. His
daughter could be heard in the background as he spoke.

"She's
coming alive all the time. ... She was in a bit of a trance when we
first got her back," he said. "I don't think she's had very much to
eat, because she's hungry now," he added. "She's covered in mosquito
bites. The bites are really bad."

The toddler told The Associated Press by phone that she was "fine" and happy to see her mother.

"She
looks well and she is in very good spirits," state government spokesman
Emmanuel Okah said as the child laughed in the background.

In Britain, Foreign Secretary David Miliband thanked those who worked to secure her release.

"I
was delighted and relieved to hear of Margaret's release," he said. "I
am grateful to the Nigerian authorities for all their help and I hope
the perpetrators will be swiftly brought to justice."

Gunmen seized Margaret while the car taking her to school idled in traffic Thursday in Port Harcourt, an oil industry center.

Her Nigerian mother, Oluchi Hill, had previously said the abductors had
contacted her and demanded an unspecified ransom for Margaret's
release. She had also said her daughter was being fed only bread and
water, and that the gunmen threatened to kill the girl if the parents
did not meet their demands — including one that the father take his
daughter's place.

Her father has lived in Nigeria for years and works in the energy industry. He also runs a popular nightspot in Port Harcourt.

Pointblank News, July 9, 2007