Gunmen kidnapped dozens of children from an Islamic seminary in central Nigeria, officials said that the most up-to-date in a series of such incidents hammering the populous African country.
Some 200 children were in the college in Niger state on Sunday throughout the attack, the local authorities tweeted, including”an unconfirmed number” were taken.
The abduction came a day following 14 pupils from a college in northwestern Nigeria was freed after 40 days in captivity.
Niger state police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun reported that the Turks arrived on motorbikes in Tegina city and began shooting, killing one resident and injuring another, before kidnapping the children from the Salihu Tanko Islamic school.
Among the college’s officials, who asked not to be named, said the attackers initially took more than 100 children” but later sent back those they considered too little for them, people between four and 12 years old”.
The state authorities, in a string of tweets, ” said the attackers had released 11 of the pupils that were”too small and couldn’t walk” quite far.
In a subsequent Twitter thread, the nation added that the governor Sani Bello had directed”security agencies to bring back [the] children whenever possible”.
– ‘Bandits’ –
Some 730 children and students have been kidnapped since December 2020 in Nigeria
Such ailments have become a frequent way for criminals to collect ransoms.
Since December 2020, prior to the assault on Sunday, 730 children and students had been kidnapped.
On April 20, gunmen knew locally as”bandits” stormed Greenfield University in northwestern Nigeria and kidnapped around 20 students, killing a part of their school’s employees in the process.
Five students have been conducted a couple of days later to force families and the government to pay a ransom.
Fourteen were released on Saturday.
Local media said that the households had paid a ransom totalling 180 million nairas ($440,000) for their launch.
-‘Kidnappings must cease’ –
Africa’s most populous nation has been plagued by kidnappings for years, with offenders largely targeting the prominent and wealthy.
But more recently, the pool of sufferers has enlarged with the poor now also taken for ransom.
Earlier this month, tens of thousands of protesters partially blocked a motorway into the capital Abuja following a spate of kidnappings in the region.
Marching along the highway, a dozen young men chanted: “We won’t take this, kidnapping must stop!”
The criminal gangs maintain camps in the Rugu forest which straddles northern and central Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states.
Their motives have been financial without ideological leanings, but there is growing concern they are being infiltrated by jihadists in the northeast waging a 12-year-old insurrection to establish an Islamic country.
The kidnappings at the shore are also complicating challenges confronting Buhari’s security forces, battling an over decade-long northeast Islamist insurgency.
