Nigeria: Hundreds of students abducted by gunmen from Islamic school

“I saw between 20 and 25 motorcycles with heavily armed people. They entered the school and went away with about 150 or more of the students,” said Tegina, who lives around 150 metres from the school.

“We can’t be exact because most of them have not reported to the school at that time.”

According to the news agency, local government officials said there were about 200 children at the school in when the attack took place.

The kidnapping of a madrassa student in Nigeria comes just one day after the release of 14 students from a northwestern university after 40 days of detention, following a series of attacks on colleges and schools in December last year. 

According to Nigeria State Police spokesman, the attackers came on motorcycles and opened fire indiscriminately, killing one civilian and injuring another.

He said the attackers had abducted children from the Salihu Tanko Islamic school.

A school official, said the attackers initially picked up more than 100 children but later returned children between the ages of 4 and 12.

The state government said in a tweet that the attackers released a child who was too young and unable to walk long distances.

Kidnappings in northwestern and central Nigeria have become a challenge for President Muhammadu Buhari and his security forces, who have been fighting terrorists for a decade.

Armed groups carrying out kidnapping for ransom are being blamed for a series of raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 700 students for ransom since December.

Armed gangs are locally known as dacoits who terrorize villages in northwestern and central Nigeria by looting villages, kidnapping cattle and civilians for ransom.

As many as 730 schoolchildren have been abducted since the attack in December 2020, with gangs often targeting schools in remote areas with poor child protection while the kidnappers take children to nearby forests.

On April 20 this year, gunmen stormed the Greenfield University in northwestern Nigeria, abducting 20 students and killing an administrative official.

The kidnappers killed five children a few days later to force the family and the government to pay a ransom, but two days ago 14 children were released.