By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Deputy Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

ROYAL Bahamas Police Force investigators have no leads and are challenged with getting people to come forward with information that could lead to the arrest of the person responsible for the abduction of three boys on Thursday.

Police confirmed on Friday that three boys were taken in last Thursday’s incident and not two as officers initially reported. In this abduction, all of the boys were relatives. Two were eight-years-old and the third was ten, police said.

This means that four boys were taken and released, unharmed, in two separate incidents within a 24-hour period — and that there have been six children reported abducted in less than three weeks.

Yesterday, Inspector Leonardo Burrows told The Tribune there wasn’t much movement in the cases.

“We aren’t following any other leads other than trying to appeal to members of the public,” Insp Burrows said on Sunday. “The challenge with that (the latest case) is it’s a Haitian Bahamian community and a lot of persons in that community are afraid to come forward.

“We believe that some of them may not be here legally so that has been a challenge for us.

“So we have been trying to check video cameras in the area to see if we can determine a make and model of the vehicle or anything else.”

Regarding Thursday’s incident, police initially said two boys, aged eight and ten, were walking on Kool Acres Road in east New Providence when “they were picked up by a female who was the lone occupant” of a dark-coloured vehicle.

When it was time to drop the boys off, the woman reportedly allowed two to leave and grabbed the third boy’s hand, keeping him in the vehicle and driving off.

“I tell her bring me back home, she say she bringing me back home now, but she did not,” eight-year-old J’Dakito Sejour told Our News on Friday.

“She drop off them, then she gone through the corner and she gone, she pass by Baha Mar then she drop me by the dump. She tell me go sit on the tyre. Then she gone. Then I start crying. Two cars saw me, they stop and they bring me to the station and they tell me tell them my mommy number and I tell them it and they called my mom.”

His mother Rosine Marcidome told the news station that the incident worried her.

Meanwhile, young J’Dakito told Our News he had never seen or spoken to the woman before. “I didn’t know where she was gonna carry me.”

J’Dakito and the older of the two boys were shown the police’s composite sketch of the abductor and both agreed it was the same woman who took them.

But J’Dakito said, “On there she look dark, in the car she was light.”

CSP Cash said on Friday: “What actually happened is that three kids were on their way home from school, a car pulled up alongside them asking them if they wished for a ride.

“After they refused the ride, the lady insisted that she would give them a ride. The three kids, they got in the vehicle, when they got near the Haitian village, the lady allowed two of the boys out and she kept one.”

The two eight-year-olds were initially dropped off by a Haitian village in the vicinity of Seabreeze and Joe Farrington Road.

The ten-year-old was dropped off later by the city dump. The boys were gone for roughly two hours, CSP Cash said.

This account again deviates from the initial police report released on Thursday evening, which said a “short time” after the abduction, the ten-year-old was returned to Kool Acres, which is off Fox Hill Road, while the younger boy was dropped off near the entrance to the dump.

When asked if the children have provided any details about their encounters with the woman, CSP Cash said: “I can say that the matter last (Thursday) night, there were some specific instructions given to the kid, and nothing to harm him, but for them to go in a particular area.

“All of this information we are compiling and analysing and hopefully we will be in a better position to say to the media exactly who we are looking for, (who) is suspected of committing these offences.”

He also said: “It appears that as if they’re looking at a particular age grouping of these kids, most of our victims are between eight and 10…male persons. Because these kids are left abandoned, unharmed physically, they’re traumatised a bit.

“We don’t really understand the intent of the person based on that behaviour and also we don’t know the motive behind them taking these kids from the streets and just abandoning them.”

The day before, March 6, eight-year-old Tyvon Deveaux was abducted by a lone female driver in a silver-coloured Japanese-model vehicle. He was later dropped off by the entrance of the dump on Tonique Williams Darling Highway.

On February 16, three-year-old Shavar Bain was abducted from outside his home and then left frightened and alone outside a Fox Hill washhouse several hours later, sparking a manhunt for two women believed to be the abductors.

On March 3, an eight-year-old girl was abducted from her home by an alleged male perpetrator. She was discovered walking in the area of Woodlawn Gardens a short time after the abduction by a passer-by and taken to the Wulff Road Police Station.

CSP Cash noted these children were taken from different zones in New Providence, so while not one particular community is being singled out, he noted the perpetrators are “targeting a certain age.”

When asked if he has any concerns that this disturbing trend will continue, CSP Cash told The Tribune: “Every matter is a concern to us, especially when you’re dealing with kids. It is a very, very deep concern to us, kids being removed from their place of comfort and left abandoned in areas deserted. So that is a concern to us. We again, like I said, we have all resources on the ground trying to canvass all these areas and hopefully we’ll be able to capture this person.”