Armed men invaded a boarding school in Niger state, northern Nigeria on Tuesday (February 16th), where they kidnapped "hundreds of students" and several teachers, told AFP a local leader and a safe source.
"Bandits entered the government college in Kagara last night and abducted hundreds of students and their teachers," said a local official in the area, who asked to remain anonymous.
"One of the staff and some students managed to escape. The staff confirmed that a student was shot" during the attack, the official added.
Armed gangs, called "bandits", sometimes several hundred strong, have been sowing terror for several years in rural areas of central and north-western Nigeria, practicing on a large scale cattle rustling and kidnapping for ransom .
Residents have set up self-defense groups to protect themselves but fail to end the violence, which has killed some 8,000 people since 2011.
With AFP
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