ABUJA, Nigeria – Days before gunmen stormed a high school in Nigeria, northern Zamfara and abducted hundreds of schoolgirls, school authorities and local security agencies were warned that danger was looming in the city, especially in the area where the school is located, according to local residents.
On Friday, heavily armed militants seized at least 315 girls staying at the Government Girls’ Secondary School in the city of Jangebe. The militants arrived by motorcycle around 1:30 a.m. local time and marched the abducted girls into the nearby forest, leaving relatives of the victims distraught and anxious. Residents said ‘foreign men’ patrolled the school grounds and intimidated members of the community in the vicinity of the school days before the abduction took place.
‘Suddenly we see strange men on the street [leading to the Government Girls’ Secondary School] acting at night as if there were vigilantes, ”Danlami Umar, who lives near the school, told The Daily Beast. “They stopped passersby and asked them where they were going.”
The men had been occupying the area of the school for two days before the incident, harassing pedestrians and asking residents to notify police officers of their activities.
“Once we reported them, they disappeared from the area,” Umar said. “We then told police officers to step up security in the school grounds, but that was not done.”
But those living near the school were not the only ones concerned about the safety situation in the area. Some family members, The Daily Beast has learned, have asked school authorities to close the residence and allow the girls to attend classes as day students due to increasing reports of criminal activity in nearby areas. Their pleas fall on deaf ears.
‘People have complained that their homes are being raided by gunmen at night and that their children are constantly being harassed by these hoods. That is why some parents asked the school to close the residence in case these criminals decide to visit the school one day, ”Jibril Abubakar, whose niece attends the school but is not among the missing, told The Daily Beast.
“Unfortunately, someone in the school said that the authorities could not close the dormitories on their own and claimed that they had to get approval from the Ministry of Education before doing so,” Abubakar added.
Concerns about the safety of their children have forced some parents to prevent their children from returning to their dormitories, but to attend school as day students, Abubakar said. The move may have kidnapped more girls from Friday.
“Some parents saw it coming and did what was right by keeping their daughters away from the residence,” Abubakar said. “If not, we would have missed more than 500 girls from school today.”
No group has yet claimed responsibility for Friday’s abduction, which took place more than a week after 42 people, including 27 schoolboys, were abducted in a similar attack on a government school in Nigeria’s north-central state. The boys have not yet been recovered.
Nearly 24 hours after the Jangebe schoolgirls were seized, a joint operation involving the police and the army has so far not been able to identify their location. “There is information that they have been moved to a neighboring forest, and we are following and watching with caution,” Abutu Yaro, Zamfara police commissioner, said at a news conference late Friday.
Increasing insecurity in parts of North West and North Central Nigeria, especially after hundreds of schoolboys were abducted in the Katsina state in December last year, forced state governments in two regions to close residences in vulnerable areas. The Zamfara government waited until Friday’s abductions before taking similar actions. But for many people in the difficult city of Jangebe, the move came too late.
“If they had acted in time, the girls would have been with their families and no one would have begged the army to find their daughters,” Abubakar said. “This careless attitude of the government must stop.”