Armed males broke right into a boarding college in northwestern Nigeria early Saturday and seized 15 kids as they slept, police instructed The Related Press, about 48 hours after almost 300 college students had been taken hostage within the conflict-hit area.
College abductions are widespread in Nigeria’s northern area, particularly for the reason that 2014 kidnapping of greater than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists in Borno state’s Chibok village shocked the world. Armed gangs have since focused faculties for kidnap ransoms, leading to at the least 1,400 kidnapped since then.
The gunmen within the newest assault invaded the Gidan Bakuso village of the Gada council space in Sokoto state about 1 a.m. native time, police mentioned. They headed to the Islamic college the place they seized the kids from their hostel earlier than safety forces might arrive, Sokoto police spokesman Ahmad Rufa’i instructed the AP.
One lady was additionally kidnapped from the village, Rufa’i mentioned, including {that a} police tactical squad was deployed to seek for the scholars.
The inaccessible roads within the space, nonetheless, challenged the rescue operation, he mentioned.
“It’s a distant village (and) autos can not go there; they (the police squad) had to make use of bikes to the village,” he mentioned.
Saturday’s assault was the third mass kidnapping in northern Nigeria since late final week, when greater than 200 folks, largely girls and kids, had been kidnapped by suspected extremists in Borno state. On Thursday, 287 college students had been additionally taken hostage from a authorities main and secondary college in Kaduna state.
The assaults spotlight as soon as once more a safety disaster that has plagued Africa’s most populous nation. Kidnappings for ransom have develop into profitable throughout Nigeria’s northern area, the place dozens of armed gangs function.
No group claimed duty for any of the abductions. Whereas Islamic extremists who’re waging an insurgency in northeastern Nigeria are suspected of finishing up the kidnapping in Borno state, locals blamed the varsity kidnappings on herders who had been in battle with their host communities earlier than taking over arms.
Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima, in the meantime, met with authorities and a few dad and mom of the kidnapped college students in Kaduna state Saturday and warranted them of efforts by safety forces to search out the kids and rescue them.