Greater than two dozen schoolgirls have been kidnapped and one staffer has been killed after gunmen attacked a highschool in northwestern Nigeria, police mentioned within the area.
No group instantly claimed duty for the abductions of 25 women from the boarding college in Kebbi state, and the motivation for the assault is unclear.
Nigeria has been going through a multi-dimensional safety problem with threats from a spread of various teams. Armed bandits who specialise in kidnapping for ransom — typically totaling hundreds of {dollars} — have been liable for a number of high-profile abductions throughout Nigeria’s northern area. Kidnappings and assaults on villages and alongside main roads have turn into frequent due to the restricted safety presence.
These bandits should not linked to militant teams similar to Boko Haram and the splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province, whose assaults on communities and authorities installations are motivated by faith.
PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AFP by way of Getty Photos
Police mentioned the boarding college women had been taken from their dorms at about 4 a.m. Monday. The varsity is in Maga, within the state’s Danko-Wasagu space, police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi mentioned.
The assailants had been armed with “refined weapons” and exchanged hearth with guards earlier than abducting the ladies, Kotarkoshi mentioned.
“A mixed group 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 mentioned.
Assaults have focused schoolchildren within the area since not less than 2014, when Boko Haram kidnapped 276 college students from Chibok in Borno state. That abduction marked the start of a brand new period of worry. Dozens stay in captivity.
Because the Chibok abductions, not less than 1,500 college students have been kidnapped, as armed teams more and more discover in abductions a profitable technique to fund different crimes and management villages within the nation’s mineral-rich however poorly policed area. In March 2024, greater than 130 schoolchildren had been rescued after spending greater than two weeks in captivity within the Nigerian state of Kaduna.
