Gunmen launched an attack on a high school in northwestern Nigeria in the early hours of Monday, seizing 25 schoolgirls and fatally injuring at least one staff member, according to authorities. The incident marks the latest instance of student abduction in the area.
No specific group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of the girls from the boarding school in Kebbi state, and the motives behind the attack remain unclear. Nigeria is grappling with a complex security crisis, primarily stemming from unidentifiable armed bandit groups specializing in ransom kidnappings, with demands often reaching thousands of dollars. These groups have been linked to numerous high-profile abductions across the northern region of Nigeria.
The bandits are distinct from militant factions like Boko Haram or the splinter group Islamic State West Africa Province, which typically carry out attacks based on religious motivations. The police reported that the schoolgirls were taken from their dormitories at 4 a.m. local time on Monday in Maga, located in the Danko-Wasagu area of the state.
The assailants were heavily armed with “sophisticated weapons” and engaged in a shootout with security guards before abducting the girls, as stated by police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi. Efforts are underway to locate and rescue the abducted students and apprehend the perpetrators through a coordinated search operation in potential escape routes and surrounding forests.
While the official report indicates one fatality and one injury, a local resident, Abdulkarim Abdullahi Maga, who had relatives abducted during the incident, believes the death toll is two. The resident recounted that the attackers arrived at the school on numerous motorcycles, targeting the teacher’s residence first, resulting in casualties.
Notably, armed groups have been targeting schoolchildren in the region since the infamous 2014 Chibok abductions led by Boko Haram in Borno state. This event marked a period of heightened fear, with numerous students still in captivity. Subsequently, over 1,500 students have been kidnapped since the Chibok abductions, with armed groups increasingly resorting to abductions as a means to fund illicit activities and assert control over villages in the mineral-rich yet poorly policed region of the country.
Although there have been sporadic incidents of school raids, state authorities have implemented security measures in vulnerable areas, including prolonged school closures, resulting in a decline in such attacks in recent years.