Nation fails to stem abductions
AS NIGERIA grapples with a rise in child abductions, questions remain about what happens to children who are kidnapped by bandits or militants in Africa’s most populous nation.
In a recent attack, on February 17, gunmen raided a state-run school in north-central Nigeria, abducting 27 children.
According to local media reports, the assailants stormed the Government Science Secondary School Kagara at about 2am.
Headlines of this nature are not unusual in Nigeria.
More than the years, there have been several child abductions in the west-african country that have garnered international attention.
But despite the media coverage, parents remain in limbo for weeks, months or even years, not knowing what has happened to their children.
As the media attention fades, many forget about the captives, who are often abducted when they are very young and remain missing for years so that they are unrecognisable when they grow up.
It has been suggested that bandits prey on boarding schools in a bid to recruit the very young and mould them into soldiers.
In December last year, more than 300 schoolboys were kidnapped from their school in north-west Nigeria.
According to the BBC, jihadist militant group Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the abductions, but some experts were sceptical, because it occurred well outside their normal area of operations. The boys were returned a week later.
With regard to the latest kidnapping, the media reported that the government insisted no ransom was paid. The boys were released after negotiations with the kidnappers.
But kidnapping in Nigeria does not stop with boys.
Who can forget the abduction of the 276 “Chibok girls” in 2014, when mostly Christian schoolgirls were kidnapped from a secondary school in the town of Chibok in Borno state? To this day, 114 girls remain missing.
There is speculation that a number of the girls were trafficked and sold, while others were forcibly married to fighters belonging to Boko Haram, who claimed responsibility for the kidnappings.
According to reports, Nigeria endorsed the international Safe Schools Declaration in March 2015, as a commitment to safeguard education in armed conflict.
Human Rights Watch says under the declaration, Nigeria is obliged to ensure programmes and policies to prevent and respond to attacks against schools and to fight the impunity with which such attacks are conducted.