KANO: Police in northwest Nigeria said 317 students were abducted by gunmen on Friday in the country’s latest mass kidnapping, and a rescue operation was underway.
“The Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operations with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the armed bandits in Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe,” police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement.
Heavily-armed criminal gangs, known locally as “bandits” in northwest and central Nigeria, have stepped up attacks in recent years, kidnapping for ransom, abusing and pillaging.
Just last week, 42 people were taken by a gang from a boys school in nearby Niger state.
In December, more than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in Kankara, in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina, while he was visiting the region.
The boys were later released but the incident triggered outrage and memories of the kidnappings of schoolgirls by fighters in Dapchi and Chibok that shocked the world.
The federal government has not yet officially commented on this latest mass kidnapping.
Nigerian police are working on information that schoolgirls kidnapped by gunmen in the northwestern state of Zamfara were moved to a neighbouring forest, the state’s police commissioner said on Friday.
He did not say whether those possibly moved to the forest included all 317 schoolgirls police earlier said were abducted.
“There’s information that they were moved to a neighbouring forest, and we are tracing and exercising caution and care,” said Abutu Yaro, commissioner of police in Zamfara, at a news conference.
The security forces are tracking the criminals, he added.
One teacher said “more than 300 are unaccounted for” after Friday’s attack, while another teacher had a higher estimate.
“Out of the 600 students in the school only around 50 have been accounted for. The rest have been abducted. It is possible some of them managed to escape, but we are not sure,” the second teacher said.
A parent said he had received a phone call about the incident.
— AFP
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