Gunmen raided a college in northwestern Nigeria and abducted 39 students in the latest massacre at a school.
The gang stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in Mando, Kaduna, on Thursday around 9:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) and shot indiscriminately before taking students. Kaduna College allegedly had about 300 male and female students – mostly 17 and older – at the time of the attack.
Samuel Aruwan, commissioner for internal security in Kaduna, said 39 of the students were missing while the army was able to rescue 180 people after a fight with the armed men. “Further investigations into the attack by armed bandits … indicate that 39 students are currently not being accounted for,” including 23 women and 16 men, Aruwan said in a statement late Friday.
He initially said that 30 students were not being reported.
Aruwan said the state government maintains’ close communication with the management of the college as the security agencies try to track down the missing students.
The commissioner said some of the rescued students were injured during the operation and treated in a military hospital.
Police and military personnel kept watch around the college on the outskirts of the city of Kaduna on Friday afternoon while anxious parents and families waited for news. A fighter jet flew overhead.
“We have confirmed from her colleagues that our daughter Sera is with the kidnappers,” Helen Sunday told reporters as tears rolled down her face. “I call on the government to help save our children.”
Heavily armed gangs in northwestern and central Nigeria have intensified and kidnapped the attacks over the past few years due to ransom, rape and looting. The bandits recently drew their attention to schools where they kidnap students or school children for ransom. Thursday’s raid was at least the fourth attack since December.
Mass kidnappings in the Northwest complicate the security challenges facing President Muhammadu Buhari’s security forces, which are also fighting a more than decade-long Islamic uprising in the Northeast.
The area is notorious for banditry and armed robbery, especially along the highway that connects the city with the airport. The gangs are largely driven by financial motives and have no known ideological tendencies. Victims are often released shortly after negotiations, although officials always deny ransoms.
On February 27, gunmen abducted 279 schoolgirls in the nearby state of Zamfara. And a week earlier, gunmen seized 42 people, including 27 students from a boarding school for all boys in the state of Niger. In December, hundreds of schoolboys in Katsina, Buhari’s home state, were seized while visiting.