Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Friday despatched troops to rescue greater than 250 pupils kidnapped by gunmen from a college within the nation’s northwest in one of many largest mass abductions in three years.
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The Kaduna state attack was the second mass kidnapping in per week in Africa’s most populous state, the place closely armed felony gangs on motorbikes goal victims in villages and faculties and alongside highways within the hunt for ransom funds.
Native government officers in Kaduna State confirmed the kidnapping assault on Kuriga faculty on Thursday, however they’ve nonetheless not given figures as they mentioned they had been nonetheless figuring out what number of children had been kidnapped.
At the least one particular person was shot lifeless through the assault, native residents mentioned.
Sani Abdullahi, a instructor on the GSS Kuriga faculty in Chikun district, mentioned workers managed to flee with many college students when the gunmen identified regionally as bandits attacked early Thursday firing within the air.
He advised native officers 187 pupils had been snatched from the principle junior faculty together with one other 100 from the first lessons. Three native residents additionally mentioned between 200 and 280 youngsters and academics had been snatched.
“Early within the morning… we heard gunshots from bandits, earlier than we knew it that they had gathered up the youngsters,” native resident Musa Mohammed advised AFP.
“We’re pleading to the government, all of us are pleading, they need to please assist us with safety.”
The Kaduna abduction and the mass kidnapping per week in the past from camps for individuals displaced by jihadists in northeast Borno state illustrate the problem dealing with Tinubu who promised to make Nigeria safer and convey in additional international funding.
“I’ve acquired briefing from safety chiefs on the 2 incidents, and I’m assured that the victims can be rescued,” Tinubu mentioned in a press release ordering armed forces to trace down the abductors.
“Nothing else is suitable to me and the ready relations of those kidnapped residents. Justice can be decisively administered.”
The 2 mass kidnappings additionally got here nearly ten years after Boko Haram jihadists triggered enormous worldwide outcry in April 2014 by kidnapping greater than 250 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno state.
A few of these women are nonetheless lacking.
Greater than 100 individuals are reported lacking after militants carried out the mass kidnapping final week concentrating on ladies and kids in camps for these displaced by the jihadist battle in Borno. However conflicting accounts have emerged concerning the time and variety of victims.
‘No stone unturned’
Police didn’t present figures for the Kuriga faculty kidnapping. However the numbers of these reported kidnapped in Nigeria are sometimes lowered after individuals who went lacking whereas fleeing assaults return house.
“The Kaduna State Authorities and Safety Companies are working around the clock to make sure the protected return of the varsity youngsters,” state governor Uba Sani mentioned on X, previously Twitter.
“I’ve acquired sturdy assurances from the President and Nationwide Safety Adviser that no stone can be left unturned to carry again the youngsters.”
Within the final three years, a whole bunch of schoolchildren and school college students have been kidnapped in mass abductions within the northwest and central area, together with in Kaduna.
Nearly all had been launched for ransom funds after weeks or months spent in captivity at bandit camps hidden within the forests that stretch throughout northwestern states.
UN baby welfare company UNICEF additionally condemned Thursday’s assault and known as on the federal government to do extra to guard college students.
“Colleges are alleged to be sanctuaries of studying and progress, not websites of worry and violence,” UNICEF Nigeria director Christian Munduate mentioned in a press release.
Nigeria’s armed forces are battling on a number of fronts, together with towards armed criminals within the northwest and the long-running jihadist insurgency within the northeast that has killed 40,000 and displaced greater than two million since 2009.
Preventing in Borno has eased as militants have been pushed again from the territory they as soon as managed, however they nonetheless perform assaults, kidnapping and raids in distant areas.
Final September, gunmen kidnapped greater than 30 individuals, together with 24 feminine college students, in a raid round a university in northwest Zamfara State.
In February 2021, bandits raided a women’ boarding faculty within the city of Jangebe in Zamfara, kidnapping round 300 college students. Months earlier, gunmen snatched greater than 300 college students from a boys faculty in Kankara in Katsina state earlier than releasing them days later.
Between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 individuals had been kidnapped in 582 kidnap-related incidents in Nigeria, in keeping with native threat analysts SBM Intelligence. It has recorded 4,777 individuals kidnapped since Tinubu took workplace in Could final yr.
(AFP)