Nigerian
police have opened a murder investigation after human skeletons and body parts
were discovered in an abandoned building in the south-west.
Officers
also rescued several people nearby who had been chained together and appeared
severely malnourished.
The alarm
had been raised by motorcycle taxi riders in the city of Ibadan after some of
their colleagues went missing.
Several
people have been arrested in the city - Nigeria's third largest - a police
spokeswoman said.
Living
skeletons
When
police searched the abandoned building - dubbed the "house of horror"
by the media - they found skeletons, decomposing bodies, skulls and bones on
bloodstained floors.
A number
of people were found shackled in leg-irons inside the building.
"Some
seven malnourished human beings looking like living skeletons were also rescued
in the bushes surrounding the building," police spokeswoman Olabisi
Ilobanafor told AFP.
She said
the motorbike riders had stumbled on the bodies after complaining to police
about the disappearance of colleagues in suspicious circumstances.
"It
is not a common occurrence in Ibadan or in the (Oyo) state. The police will
investigate this crime in all its ramifications," she said.
Observers
say some victims of kidnapping are often tortured or used as sacrifices in
black magic rituals.
Post a Comment