Gunmen have kidnapped more than 280 pupils during a raid on a school in northwest Nigeria, a teacher and a local resident said on Thursday.
Local government officials in Kaduna State confirmed the kidnapping attack on Kuriga school, but gave no numbers as they said they were still working out how many children had been abducted.
Sani Abdullahi, one of the teachers at the GSS Kuriga school in the Chikun District, said that staff escaped with many students when the gunmen were firing in the air.
Photo: AFP
“We then began working to determine the actual figure of those kidnapped,” Abdullahi told local officials visiting the school. “In GSS Kuriga, 187 children are missing, while in the primary school, 125 children were missing, but 25 returned.”
“More than 280 have been kidnapped,” local resident Muhammad Adam told reporters. “We initially thought the number was 200, but after a careful count it was discovered the children kidnapped are a little more than 280.”
Local officials and police did not give any figures for the number of kidnapped.
Often figures of those reported kidnapped or missing in Nigeria are lowered after people fleeing the attack return home.
“As of this moment we have not been able to know the number of children or students that have been kidnapped,” Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani told reporters at the site. “No child will be left behind.”
Hundreds of schoolchildren and college students have been kidnapped in mass abductions in the country’s northwest and central region, including in Kaduna, in the past few years.
Almost all were released for ransom payments after weeks or months spent in captivity in camps hidden in forests that stretch across the northwestern states.
Amnesty International condemned the abductions in Kaduna.
“Schools should be places of safety, and no child should have to choose between their education and their life,” the group wrote on X. “The Nigerian authorities must take measures immediately to prevent attacks on schools, to protect children’s lives and their right to education.”
Since coming to office in May, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has made reducing insecurity one of his priorities, but Nigeria’s armed forces are battling on several fronts, including against a long-running jihadist insurgency in the northeast of the country.
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