Air Peace’s personnel on Monday once again at the Murtala Muhammed Airport Two (MMA2), Lagos, foiled attempt by two people to traffic babies out of Lagos State.
The two adults; male and female were said to have given different accounts on their relationship with the two children, which further raised suspension from the craw of the airline.
The spokesman for Air Peace,Stanley Olisa,said in a statement that the airline’s passenger service executives and security personnel suspected the two adults who were travelling to Asaba, Delta State with the airline on its afternoon flight.
Olisa disclosed that as the suspicion intensified, the two adults, who hinted that the babies were three months old each, were further questioned by another counter attendant and security personnel, but they gave a different narrative.
He said: “On June 7, 2021, at MMA2, around 12:00 hours, a man and a woman, carrying two babies, approached our counter for check-in. Our Passenger Service Executive, being suspicious of the duo’s behaviour, questioned them about the babies. They said the babies belonged to them and were travelling to Asaba.
“The two adults gave conflicting explanations to different staff- that the babies were being taken to United Kingdom to unite them with their parents and later they said they were sending the babies to Zimbabwe for adoption.”
Olisa explained that upon further questioning, the adults confessed that they were not the parents of the babies.
Consequently, its security unit took the suspects to the MMA2 Police Station where they admitted they were agents who traffic children for adoption.
According to him, the Police said they would transfer the case to the National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) for further investigation and action.
It can be recalled that Air Peace crew prevented two child trafficking schemes in June 2018 on a Lagos–Banjul flight and in January 2019 on a Lagos-Port Harcourt flight, respectively.
