Police investigate abduction claim

Police in the Cayo District are reporting a strange occurrence that at news time has them baffled. Late this morning, alerted by a resident near Benque Viejo, officers were called to a bushy area near the border where they found a sixteen-year-old girl, naked, her hands and feet bound with duct tape. According to police, the girl, a student of Saint Catherine Academy, told them that she was walking down Barrack Road in Belize City on her way to school around ten to eight this morning when a small blue car with tinted windows pulled up. She claims that a dark skinned young man got out of the vehicle, held her at gunpoint and forced her inside the car. Once inside the vehicle, the student told police she was taken to the border at Benque where the two men inside the vehicle then forced her into some bushes, took off her clothes, tied her hands and feet with duct tape and just left her. Nearby residents heard a young lady crying and called the police. The girl claims she was not sexually molested. According to police, they have not yet verified the girl’s account, but are investigating.