One person has been killed and several others injured after unknown gunmen abducted about 150 children from an Islamic school in Nigeria. The school’s owner, Abubakar Tegina, tells Reuters that he witnessed the attack and estimates that around 150 students were taken.
– I personally saw between 20 and 25 motorcycles with heavily armed people. They entered the school and took with them close to 150 of the students, Tegina says Reuters.
More than 700 students abducted
Armed groups carrying out kidnappings for ransom have been blamed for a series of raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, and have abducted more than 700 ransom students since December.
11 of the children who were taken were released because they were “too young and could not walk”, the state governor’s spokeswoman told Reuters. Police spokesman Waisu Abiodun said CNN that several security teams have been mobilized to save the school children, and the police will ‘ensure that the children are rescued unharmed’.
RELEASE THEM: Following a mass kidnapping in March this year, parents and relatives demanded that their children be released. Photo: Kola Sulaimon / AFP
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Pays ransom
Sunday’s attack in Nigeria took place the day after the release of the remaining 14 students from a group abducted last month from a university in neighboring Kaduna. Five of the students were killed while in captivity.
Kidnappings have become one of the biggest security challenges in Nigeria, and hundreds of students have been abducted in various mass kidnappings in Northern Nigeria. Some state governors regularly pay ransoms to ensure the safety of victims, but rarely admit that they do.
Between June 2011 and the end of March 2020, it was estimated that close to $ 18.3 million had been paid in ransom.
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