Nigeria kidnappings: more students snatched as army hunts for missing

Gunmen kidnapped 15 more students from an Islamic school in northwestern Nigeria, which comes following the abduction of more than 280 children by gunmen in the same region last week.

The gunmen broke into the premises of the Islamic seminary in the village of Gidan Bakuso in Sokoto state on Saturday (9 March), snatching 15 children mostly aged between eight and 14 from the hostel as they slept, according to police sources. It was the third incident of mass kidnapping in the wider region since last week, when more than 200 people, mostly women and children, were taken hostage by suspected fighters in Borno state. On Thursday (7 March), 287 students were kidnapped from a government primary and secondary school in Kaduna state.

With kidnappings increasing in northwestern Nigeria, local people have told the media that they feel abandoned by the government and will have no peace of mind until the children return. Saturday’s kidnappings come as the Nigerian government on Friday (8 March) initiated a search and rescue operation for the other almost three hundred missing children. Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration is keen to show the public how seriously it is trying to reverse one of the largest mass abductions in years.

Being one of the world’s kidnapping hot spots, Nigeria has seen an increasing number of school kidnappings in Nigeria since the jihadist group Boko Haram seized over 200 pupils from a girls’ school in Chibok in 2014.