Schoolgirls ‘kidnapped’ after school is stormed by Boko Haram

THE Nigerian Boko Haram terror group stormed a secondary school yesterday in what was being reported as their largest mass abduction attempt since the 2014 Chibok kidnappings.

More than 100 schoolgirls were feared to have been kidnapped at first, but last night officials in the country reportedly said as many as 76 had been rescued, amid fears two had died.

Militants from the jihadist group had entered the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Dapchi, northeast Nigeria, on Monday evening.

Abdulmaliki Sumonu, the police commissioner of Yobe state, originally said 815 students had returned to the school out of 926. Some 33 were still unaccounted for last night.

Witnesses have described the militants making directly for the school, which teaches girls from the ages of 11 and above, during Monday’s attack.

Last night Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, tweeted: “Deeply concerned by reports that schoolgirls have been abducted in Nigeria – UK urgently following up with Nigerian authorities. Attacks on schools are abhorrent and must stop. Every girl deserves a safe education.”

Muhammadu Buhari, the Nigerian president, who was elected in 2015 after promising to end the insurgency, said he had ordered the military and police to “mobilise immediately” to find the girls and dispatched his defence minister to the area on a factfinding trip today.

“I share the anguish of all the parents and guardians of the girls that remain unaccounted for. I would like to assure them that we are doing all in our power to ensure the safe return of all the girls,” he said on Twitter.

Parents and local officials described a confused situation in Dapchi, saying that it was still not clear how many of the unaccounted for girls were simply hiding in the bush.

“Our girls have been missing for two days and we don’t know their whereabouts,” said Abubakar Shehu, whose niece is among the missing. “We are beginning to harbour fears the worst might have happened.

“We have the fear that we are dealing with another Chibok scenario. About 20,000 people in northern Nigeria have been killed and two million others displaced since Boko Haram launched an insurgency there in 2009.

The group has kidnapped thousands of adults and children during the conflict. The most notorious came in April 2014, when it took 276 girls from a school in the town of Chibok.

While many of the Chibok girls have since escaped or been released, around 100 of them are thought to still be held by the group. Last month, Boko Haram released a video of some of the Chibok girls it still holds, claiming that they did not wish to return home. A group of about 12 teenage girls and young women, some of whom are holding babies, are seen in the 21-minute video.

‘Our girls have been missing for two days and we don’t know their whereabouts ... we fear another Chibok’