ABUJA, Nigeria — Gunmen attacked a highschool in northwestern Nigeria earlier than daybreak on Monday and kidnapped 25 schoolgirls, police mentioned. One staffer on the faculty was killed and one other was wounded in what was the newest incident of college abductions in Nigeria’s northern area.
No group instantly claimed duty for the abductions from the boarding faculty in Kebbi state.
Based on police, the incident befell at 4:00 a.m. and the women have been kidnapped from their dorms. The boarding faculty is in Maga, within the state’s Danko-Wasagu space, police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi mentioned.
The assailants have been armed with “refined weapons” and exchanged fireplace with guards earlier than abducting the women, Kotarkoshi mentioned.
“A mixed staff is at the moment combing suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a coordinated search and rescue operation geared toward recovering the kidnapped college students and arresting the perpetrators,” the spokesperson added.
That is the newest faculty abduction in Nigeria’s northern area, the place armed teams have focused faculty youngsters since 2014, when the militant Boko Haram group kidnapped 276 college students from Chibok in Borno state.
Kidnappings have develop into widespread in components of northern Nigeria, the place dozens of armed teams make the most of a restricted safety presence to hold out assaults on villages and alongside main roads. Most victims are launched solely after the cost of ransoms that typically run into the 1000’s of {dollars}.
In March 2024, greater than 130 schoolchildren have been rescued after spending greater than two weeks in captivity within the Nigerian state of Kaduna.
The mass abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok marked the start of a brand new period of concern — with almost 100 of the women nonetheless in captivity in 2024.
Because the Chibok abductions, at the least 1,500 college students have been kidnapped, as armed teams more and more discover in abductions a profitable option to fund different crimes and management villages within the nation’s mineral-rich however poorly policed area.
