More Than 200 School Girls Missing As Bandits Attack School In Northern Nigeria

Several hundred girls are missing after unidentified gunmen raided a school hostel in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara, a teacher and parent told the AFP news agency, in the second mass kidnapping in the troubled region in little more than a week.

Sulaiman Tanau Anka, information commissioner for Zamfara State, however, told Reuters that it was not immediately clear how many children had been seized.

“Unknown gunmen came shooting sporadically and took the girls away,” Anka said. “Information available to me said they came with vehicles and moved the students, they also moved some on foot,” Anka said.

Security forces were hunting through the area, he added.

Earlier, a teacher at the Government Girls Secondary School Jangebe, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP news agency that “more than 300 girls are unaccounted for” after the raid.

A parent told AFP he had received a call about the incident.

“I’m on my way to Jangebe. I received a call that the school was invaded by bandits who took away schoolgirls. I have two daughters in the school,” said Sadi Kawaye.

A police spokesman for the state did not immediately respond to calls and messages seeking comment.

“[According to local people] the gunmen arrived shortly midnight and operated for hours in this all-girls school in Zamfar state,” Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reporting from Minna in Niger State said.

“This is one of the states that is continuously being attacked by these gunmen, abductions for ransom and raiding for villages … this is practically one of the major things that people in the north of the country are facing on a daily bases,” he added.

This is the second such kidnapping in a little more than a week in Nigeria’s north, which has seen a surge in activity by armed groups leading to a widespread and worsening breakdown of security.

Last week, unidentified attackers killed a student in an overnight attack on a boarding school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger and kidnapped 42 people, including 27 students. The hostages are yet to be released.

More than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in December in Kankara, in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina, while he was visiting the region.

The boys were later released after negotiations with government officials but the incident triggered global outrage.