An employee of Belgrade’s Energoprojekt Dragan Stepanović, who was kidnapped in Nigeria, has managed to escape.
He told the FoNet news agency that he was able to escape because his captors probably did not expect that He would know the location where he was kidnapped very well.
Stepanović was kidnapped in broad daylight on November 16 by four men while working on an Energoprojekt construction site in a Nigerian village.
He said that they fire shots at them, assaulted the driver of his vehicle and earlier kidnapped a boy and girl who were 10 and 12 years old.
“They took my phone and money and took me to some kind of church, and took me somewhere further later,” Stepanović said.
He said that they traveled all night through swamps and that He heard gunfire on several occasions.
“The next day, they told me to stand and wait for a car to come pick me up, and they left with the children. I do not know why they left me alone,” Stepanović said.
“After 15 minutes, I said a prayer and left. I knew which way I needed to go and I managed to get to the road,” Stepanović said, adding that the main problem was that “no drivers wanted to stop for a white person.”
He then told someone that his car has crashed; adding that he probably would not have been picked up if he told someone that he had been kidnapped.
Stepanović was then taken to the city.
Energoprojekt stated that Stepanović was working in a part of Nigeria in which kidnappings are very rare.
The kidnappers asked first for USD 3mn and then for 1.3mn.
Energoprojekt officials said that kidnappers in Nigeria always ask for a lot of money and that is why it takes two to three weeks of negotiations usually before the captives are freed, adding that thankfully, Stepanović was able to escape.