HUNDREDS KIDNAPPED IN STRING OF SCHOOL ATTACKS IN NIGERIA

▶ Residents lose hope as more than 300 pupils seized by armed gangs within 48 hours in country’s north

Armed men broke into a boarding school in north-western Nigeria early on Saturday and seized 15 children as they slept, about 48 hours after almost 300 pupils were taken hostage in the conflict-hit region.

The gunmen in the latest attack invaded Gidan Bakuso village, Sokoto state, at about 1am local time, police said.

They entered the village’s Islamic school and abducted the children from their dormitory before security forces could arrive, Sokoto police spokesman Ahmad Rufai said.

One woman was also abducted from the village, Mr Rufai said. A police tactical squad had been given the task of searching for the pupils, he added. However, the rescue operation faced difficulty due to the inaccessible roads.

“It is a remote village, vehicles cannot go there; [police] had to use motorcycles to the village,” Mr Rufai said.

Saturday’s attack comes after 287 pupils were taken hostage from a school in the town of Kuriga, Kaduna state. Authorities say at least 100 of the pupils were aged 12 or younger.

No group has claimed responsibility for any of the recent abductions. Locals attribute the attacks to herders who are in conflict with the settled communities.

Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima met authorities and some parents of the abducted pupils in Kaduna state on Saturday and assured them that security forces were working to rescue the children.

Recalling Thursday’s incident, teacher Nura Ahmad said pupils were settling into their classrooms when gunmen “came in dozens, riding on bikes and shooting sporadically”.

“They surrounded the school and blocked all passages and roads” before abducting the children in less than five minutes, Ms Ahmad said.

Abdullahi Usman, 14, braved gunshots to escape the captors. “The bandits were shouting: ‘Go! Go! Go!’,” he said.

“Those who refused to move fast were either forced on the motorcycles or threatened by gunshots fired into the air.”

Some residents, like Lawan Yaro, whose five grandchildren were among the abducted, said their hopes were fading.

People are used to the region’s insecurity, Mr Yaro said, “but it has never been in this manner”.

The kidnappings are a stark reminder of the security crisis plaguing Africa’s most populous country.

More than 3,500 people have been abducted across Nigeria in the past year, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. Some were even taken from their homes in the capital Abuja.

School abductions are common in northern Nigeria, especially since the 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Borno state’s Chibok village that shocked the world.

Since then, armed gangs have abducted at least 1,400 pupils from schools, demanding ransom money for their return.

Last year, President Bola Tinubu took office after he successfully campaigned on the promise to tighten security and stop the kidnappings.

Experts say it is easy to smuggle in arms, used in kidnappings, over Nigeria’s poorly policed borders. Though mostly covered in woodland savannah, the region also has vast ungoverned and unoccupied forests where gangs hide and keep the people they abduct.

In 2022, the Nigerian government introduced a law to penalise ransom payments, but the kidnappers are known for their brutality, and force many families to succumb to their demands.

Nigeria’s military conducts air strikes and operations in the region, but is fatigued by a 14-year insurgency in the north-east.

Armed gangs continue to multiply in the north, and often work with extremists in a bid to expand their operations.

The military has said kidnap victims are sometimes used as “human shields” to prevent aerial bombardments of the forests where their captors hide.

More than 3,500 people have been abducted in Nigeria in the past year, some even taken from their homes in Abuja