Nigeria sends troops to rescue kidnapped schoolchildren

 

Nigeria’s president, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has sent troops to rescue more than 250 children kidnapped by gunmen from a school in the north-west of the country in one of the largest mass abductions in recent years.

The mass kidnapping in Kaduna state was the second in a week in Nigeria, where heavily armed criminal gangs on motorbikes target victims in villages and schools and along highways in search of ransom payments.

Local government officials in Kaduna confirmed the kidnapping at Kuriga school on Thursday, but said they could not give firm figures because they were still working out how many children had been abducted.

At least one person was shot dead during the attack, local residents said.

Sani Abdullahi, a teacher at the GSS Kuriga school in Chikun district, said staff managed to escape with many students when the gunmen, known locally as bandits, attacked early on Thursday firing in the air.

He told local officials 187 pupils had been taken from the main junior school and another 100 from the primary classes. Three local residents also said that between 200 and 280 children and teachers had been abducted.

“Early in the morning ... we heard gunshots from bandits. Before we knew it they had gathered up the children,” Musa Mohammed, a local resident said. “We are pleading to the government, all of us are pleading, they should please help us with security.”

The Kaduna abduction and the mass kidnapping a week ago from camps for displaced people displaced in north-east Borno state illustrate the challenge facing Tinubu, who promised to make Nigeria safer and bring in more foreign investment.

“I have received briefing from security chiefs on the two incidents, and I am confident that the victims will be rescued,” Tinubu said in a statement ordering that armed forces to track down the kidnappers. “Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members of these abducted citizens. Justice will be decisively administered.”

The two mass kidnappings come almost 10 years after the Boko Haram group triggered a major international outcry in April 2014 by kidnapping more than 250 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno state. Some of those girls are still missing.