Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari sent the country’s military leaders to coordinate a rescue operation.
Photo:
given / Reuters
Dozens of schoolboys and staff were abducted by gunmen in northwestern Nigeria early Wednesday, the latest in a series of high school kidnappings that have devastated the northern states of Africa’s most populous country, local officials said.
The gunmen stormed the Government Science College in the Kagara district of Niger state at around 2 a.m. and overwhelmed school security, killing one student before ordering students and staff to leave their hostels and gather, officials said. “The situation is very serious … Some 27 students, 3 staff and 12 members of their families have been kidnapped,” said Abubakar Sani Bello, the governor of the state of Niger. Unfortunately one student was shot. “
A photo shared by the governor’s security officials showed a student’s body on the back of a pickup truck covered in leaves. There was no immediate claim to responsibility.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, who has been criticized for being slow to respond to previous kidnappings, sent the country’s military chiefs to coordinate a rescue operation, his spokesman said.
Shehu Sani, a former senator who studied in Kagara as a boy, said it was unclear how many people were missing, but that the school was attended by about 1,000 students.
More than 300 schoolboys were received by government officials in Nigeria after being released by their kidnappers. Jihadist group Boko Haram had claimed responsibility for kidnapping them a week ago. Photo: Afolabi Sotunde / Reuters (originally published December 18, 2020)
The kidnapping comes barely a month after 344 boys were taken from a school in the nearby state of Katsina. Three of the kidnapped boys told The Wall Street Journal in interviews that the kidnappers told them that a ransom had been paid for their release. Government officials denied paying the ransom, saying the kidnappers released the schoolboys because the military surrounded them.
Mr Sani said kidnapping for ransom is now a billion dollar business in the North. “It’s a disaster, the countryside is pretty much under the control of these bandits.”
Write to Joe Parkinson at [email protected]
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