The Rivers state police command says it rescued sixteen children comprising eleven girls and five boys and not two hundred as posted by some online medium .

The command in a statement by its spokesperson Grace Iringe-koko made available to newsmen, said operatives attached to the Ozuoba division acted on credible information which led to the rescue of the sixteen children who were abandoned by their guardians.

The legal guardians of the children are said to have been arrested by the Akwa-Ibom state police command on the previous day for a crime they had committed, leaving the children unattended, before a neighbor alerted the police officer the situation.
The children have been handed over to the Rivers state ministry of social welfare, while the two guardians arrested have been taken to court.

However, the police have distanced itself from a social media report that the rescued children were over 200 and it is a clear case of child trafficking. The police described the report as misleading, as it caution social media users and influencers to desist from negative report bent on heating up the already heated polity.