Nigerian security forces on Tuesday intensified a search for 25 girls abducted by gunmen from a boarding school in northwestern Kebbi, the latest school abduction as widespread insecurity continues to plague the country.
Parents who gathered at the school said two girls had managed to escape their abductors on Monday evening.
Police said men armed with rifles stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga around 4 a.m. local time (0300 GMT) on Monday, arriving on motorcycles in an apparently well-planned attack.
The attackers exchanged gunfire with police before scaling the perimeter fence and abducting the students.
Most of the students and those kidnapped are Muslim, the dominant religion in the region, school officials said.
“We must find these children. Act decisively and professionally on all intelligence. Success is not optional,” Lieutenant General Waidi Shaibu, Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, told troops during a visit to Kebbi on Tuesday.
Nazifi Isa, a resident, said he heard about the kidnapping at Maga’s school after dawn prayers at a mosque. He got on his motorbike and headed to the school, where he learned that one of his two daughters was among those taken.
“Since yesterday, we haven’t eaten, and my wife is in tears. I can’t even go back home to see her because I know how distraught she is,” Isa told Reuters by phone.
NIGERIA UNDER PRESSURE FROM TRUMP
Nigeria has faced increased U.S. scrutiny since President Donald Trump threatened military action over what he says is the persecution of Christians by Islamist insurgents like Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) and Boko Haram.
Nigeria is battling insurgents in the northeast, while kidnappings for ransom by armed groups have increased in the northwest and clashes continue between cattle herders and farmers in the middle belt.
The ISWAP said its fighters abducted and executed an army general in the northeast over the weekend, in a blow to Nigeria’s counterinsurgency fight.
Local media reported that on Monday, another armed gang abducted 64 people, including women and children in Zamfara state, which borders Kebbi.
Many such kidnappings go unreported because they happen in remote areas where communication is patchy.
ECHOES OF CHIBOK KIDNAPPING
At Maga school, some parents waited in hope that their children would be found alive.
The attack echoed Boko Haram’s 2014 kidnapping of over 300 mostly Christian Chibok girls, which sparked global outrage.
Some of those girls escaped, others were released after years in captivity and negotiations with their abductors, but many have never returned.
Since then, hundreds more have been kidnapped from schools and universities for ransom.
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