KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) – A video of some students being abducted from a college in northwestern Nigeria emerged on Saturday showing them crouching on a forest floor while armed hijackers beat them with sticks.
Thirty-nine students are missing after gunmen stormed the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization in the state of Kaduna overnight on Thursday, the fourth kidnapping of the school in northern Nigeria since December.
Video recordings shared on social media showed about two dozen students in English and Hausa begging for help. One says the hijackers want a ransom of 500 million naira ($ 1.31 million).
“If anyone comes to save them without the money, they will kill us,” a male student said in the video while a man with a gun stood behind him.
Bello Mohammed Usman, university provost and the mother of one abducted student, on Saturday identified those shown in the video as among the abducted students, including one pregnant woman. Usman declined to comment on the ransom request.
Abubakar Sadiq, executive secretary of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency, said he was unaware of the video and that he had no power to comment on the ransom requirement.
Earlier on Saturday, Kaduna State Commissioner Samuel Aruwan said nine more students were missing than previously thought – 23 women and 16 men.
“The Kaduna State Government maintains close communication with the management of the college as efforts are made by security agencies to locate the missing students,” Aruwan said.
The armed gang broke into the school, on the outskirts of the city of Kaduna near a military academy, at about 11.30pm on Thursday. Aruwan said another 180 students and staff members who went to the school were rescued early Friday.
Attacks by gangs of armed men, known as bandits, have been increasing for several years, and the efforts of the military and police to tackle the gangs have met with little success. Many are concerned that state authorities are exacerbating the situation by leaving kidnappers unpunished, paying them off or giving incentives.
President Muhammadu Buhari insisted in a statement on Saturday that the missing students should be found and returned safely to their families.
According to Gloria Paul, she recognized her 20-year-old daughter, Joy Kurmi Paul, in the video wearing a pink headscarf. The mother sought help outside the school on Saturday.
“Please, the government must help us release them without hurting them,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Reporting by Garba Muhammad, additional reporting by Maiduguri Newsroom and Felix Onuah in Abuja. Written by Libby George, edited by Alexandra Hudson, Rosalind Russell and Clelia Oziel