LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – Gunmen attacked a school in northwestern Nigeria and abducted 39 students just weeks after a similar mass abduction in the region, authorities said on Friday.
Police said the latest kidnapping took place late Thursday night at the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Afaka, in the Igabi local government area in Kaduna state.
“The number of missing students is now 39, consisting of 23 women and 16 men,” said Samuel Aruwan, commissioner of the Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs in Kaduna, in a statement. Several school staff were also abducted, he added.
Aruwan said the attack was carried out by a large group of “armed bandits”, adding that the army could involve the attackers and take 180 staff and students to safety.
An indefinite number of students were injured and received medical assistance in a military facility. Security forces “are conducting an operation to locate the missing students,” Aruwan said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the abduction and called for “the immediate and unconditional release of the detainees,” said UN spokeswoman Stephane Dujarric.
The head of the UN urged authorities to ensure that schools’ remain a safe space for children to learn without fear of violence or kidnapping or any other attacks on them, ” Dujarric said.
Nigerian authorities also said that ‘bandits’ behind the earlier abduction of 279 schoolgirls were in the north-west late last month, citing groups of gunmen abducting for money or putting pressure on the release of prisoners from their groups. These girls were later released after negotiations with the government, and it is not known whether a ransom was paid.
The Islamic extremist group Boko Haram is also known for kidnapping young women and forcing them to marry, especially in the 2014 attack on Chibok Secondary School in Borno State. That mass kidnapping caused an international call and led the #BringBackOurGirls campaign. Of the 276 girls taken, more than 100 are still missing almost seven years later.