Cops search for kidnapped girl, 6, snatched from her screaming mum’s arms by gang on school run
A MANHUNT is underway after a six-year-old girl was snatched from her screaming mother’s arms by four men as she dropped her off at school today.
Distraught Angeline de Jager had just parked her VW Polo outside the gates to walk her daughter Amy-Lee and her five-year-old son inside when the violent kidnappers suddenly struck in South Africa.
Police believe Amy-Lee was targeted because they threw her brother aside and ignored all the other children and grabbed the girl who had been gathered up in her terrified mothers’ arms.
A short while later her father Wynand who is a F1 powerboat racer on the international circuit received a mobile call demanding a 2 million rand ransom (£111,000) for his daughters safe release.
The pretty brown haired and brown eyed schoolgirl was snatched at the Kollegepark Primary School, Vanderbijlpark, near Johannesburg, at 7.30am.
Amy-Lee was dragged screaming for her distraught mother into the Toyota Fortuner which then sped off from the school.
A source close to the family said: “You can only imagine what is going through the minds of her mother and father but this was clearly not a random attack and this had been planned.
“The police have been brilliant and are doing all that they can do get her back home safe but it is just terrifying. Amy-Lee is 6 and defenceless. Her mum and dad are having nightmares”.
A private investigator who specialises in tracing missing children Wendy Pascoe was called in along with hostage negotiators and tracing teams and the SA Crime Intelligence Unit.
HELD TO RANSOM
Wendy told TimesLIVE:”When the call came through I began assisting at the police station as we do with cases of missing children but we have handed it over now to hostage negotiators.
“This is not something we usually see with kidnappings and what is odd is that the vehicle wasn’t taken but the child was as usually the child is taken by mistake when a car is hijacked.
“What is also very curious is that the abductors seem to have targeted Amy-Lee as they paid no attention to the other children which tells us that they were waiting for her” she said.
ER24 paramedics rushed to the Vanderbijlpark Police Station to assess Amy-Lee’s parents with her mum complaining of shoulder pains after her child was wrenched violently from her arms.
SNATCHED FROM SCREAMING MUM’S ARMS
Both were stabilised although said to be in shock but needed no further treatment.
A spokesman for the Gauteng Education Department expressed their shock and said they had brought in expert counsellors to talk to parents and children who were in tears after the abduction.
Member for the School Governing Body Andries Pienaar said: “We are all very shocked by what happened but you can clearly see this was a well planned abduction of a child from her mother”.
Amy-Lee’s aunt Louise Horn who is caring for the abducted girl’s brother Jayden, 5, while her parents are with the police told TimesLIVE:”I have him with me and is traumatised but he is fine.
MUM’S HELL
“Her mother and father are at the police station with the hostage negotiators and are waiting in case the captors call again but are in a dark place are not holding up well as you can imagine”.
Amy-Lee was wearing a pink dress, white blouse, black leggings and shoes when she was snatched.
Captain Kay Makhubele told said a huge manhunt had been launched and asked for anyone with any information that could help recover Amy-Lee safe and well to contact the South African Police Service.
Eye witness Annemarie Pienaar who dropped her son and walked him to class told Vaal Weekblad newspaper that she was 5 metres from Amy-Lee’s car whe she witnessed the kidnap right in front of her.
She said: “I heard a woman screaming, and when I looked up I saw a white Toyota Fortuner and just saw how the mother fell on the ground and saw how the vehicle pulled away or bumped her.
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“I could not see the men or, at that stage, a registration number and the windows were blacked out.
“The next moment there was a little boy at the gate screaming. One could see the fear on his face. I picked him up and he just screamed, ‘My sister, my sister!’ I then took him to his class.
“I at first thought it was the mother’s vehicle that was stolen but was then told that they had grabbed the child from her and bundled her into the Fortuner and then drover her away”.