{"id":62127,"date":"2025-03-04T18:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T18:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=62127"},"modified":"2025-03-04T18:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T18:15:11","slug":"edo-police-hunt-suspected-herdsmen-who-abducted-catholic-priest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/03\/04\/edo-police-hunt-suspected-herdsmen-who-abducted-catholic-priest\/","title":{"rendered":"Edo Police Hunt Suspected Herdsmen Who Abducted Catholic Priest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Njoku Chijioke<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Edo State Police Command has launched a manhunt for suspected herdsmen who abducted Rev. Fr. Philip Ekeli and a seminarian, Peter Andrew, from St. Peter Catholic Church, Ivukwa, in Etsako East Local Government Area.<\/p>\n<p>The attack occurred around 11:30 p.m. on Monday when armed men stormed the church.<\/p>\n<p>A swift police response, in collaboration with vigilantes and hunters under Operation Rescue, led to a gun battle with the kidnappers, resulting in the death of one suspect.<\/p>\n<p>Security forces recovered a Tecno button phone, two SIM cards, a power bank, a dagger jacket, a bag containing biscuits and Nescaf\u00e9, and \u20a6168,850 in cash.<\/p>\n<p>Four suspects were arrested, while efforts continue to rescue the victims and track down the remaining abductors.<\/p>\n<p>Edo Commissioner of Police, Betty Otimenyin, has ordered reinforcements from the anti-kidnapping unit, Police Mobile Force, and military personnel to ensure the unconditional release of the priest and seminarian.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Njoku Chijioke The Edo State Police Command has launched a manhunt for suspected herdsmen who abducted Rev. Fr. Philip Ekeli and a seminarian, Peter Andrew, from St. Peter Catholic Church, Ivukwa, in Etsako East Local Government Area. The attack occurred around 11:30 p.m. on Monday when armed men stormed the church. A swift police [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":62128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62127","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62127"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62129,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62127\/revisions\/62129"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}