Katsina State Comptroller of the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, Mohammed Yaro, has disclosed that human traffickers now use motorcycles and donkeys to transport their victims from Nigeria to neighbouring countries in order to avoid being detected by security agents.

Yaro made this known while parading 11 victims of human trafficking who were rescued over the weekend by the state Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service in various border areas of the state.

Seven out of the 11 victims are from Edo State, three hails from Delta State and one is from Kogi State.

Yaro told journalists that the victims were picked up individually on Saturday while attempting to cross over to the neighbouring Niger Republic on their way to Italy without any travelling documents.

He said the NIS was able to rescue them as a result of new strategies adopted by men of its intelligence unit.

The NIS Comptroller would not disclose the border areas where the victims were picked up, insisting that doing so would jeopardise the investigation being carried out by the service to track down the traffickers.

“Our investigation revealed that their mission was to cross border en route Agadez in Niger Republic to Libya and then Italy for so-called employment,” Yaro said.

“It was further established that none of them was in possession of any travel documents.

“It is important to note that the victims were misled by the traffickers whose business is to ferry persons across the border through illegal routes.

“We are, however, prepared to deal with the syndicates. Katsina State will no longer be used as a transit route for human trafficking,” he vowed.