Nigeria abduction: At least 28 schoolchildren escape captors

The governor of Kaduna, Nigeria, told News that at least 28 of nearly 300 kidnapped schoolchildren had escaped.

The Nigerian army is intensively searching for children kidnapped in the northern town of Kuriga on Thursday. Troop is working with police and local survey teams to clear forests in Kaduna state and neighboring states. This robbery is the largest school robbery so far in 2021.

School officials and parents said that a group of armed men on motorcycles kidnapped approximately 300 primary and secondary school students aged between 8 and 15.

He believes that almost every family in the village has a boy. A student thought to be 14 years old, who was shot by an armed attacker and was treated in hospital, died. There was a kidnapping the previous day when women and children were taken from the rural town of Borno.

Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, in his statement to the news,said that the main reason for the increase in theft in the region is the lack of boats. Parents and relatives of the kidnapped children have formed a vigilante group and are seeking help from neighboring communities to find the children. Nigerian Vice President Qasim Shettima visited Kaduna and will meet the governor.

leader Bola Tinubu said on social media that he was confident the victims could be rescued. wrote on Twitter: “Nothing can be done for me and the families of the kidnapped people. Justice will be served.” Search operations continue in Katsina and Zamfara states.

The mass robbery in Kaduna was reminiscent of the 2014 massacre in the northern Nigerian town of Chibok, where nearly 300 girls were killed. In some parts of northern Nigeria, parents refuse to send their children to school due to concerns about their safety. Kidnappings for ransom by the military are common in northern Nigeria, and thousands of children are prevented from going to school.

The last major incident involving school children in Kaduna was in July 2021 when gunmen kidnapped more than 150 students. Months after the family paid the ransom, the students are reunited. In 2022, Nigeria passed a law banning the payment of ransom to kidnappers and imprisonment for 15 years. Article : Theft is also considered a punishment