New mass kidnapping in Nigeria, third attack on boarding school since December
Nigerian soldiers on patrol, October 12, 2019 © AFP
Text by: RFI Follow
2 min
In Nigeria, another mass kidnapping took place overnight from Thursday to Friday at a boarding school in Zamfara state, in the northwest of the country.
Armed men stormed a girls' school and several hundred students were reportedly captured.
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With our correspondent in Abuja
,
Liza Fabbian
This is the
third time that a boarding school has been attacked
in the north-western regions of Nigeria since December.
These large-scale kidnappings are increasing in this region where criminal groups specializing in kidnappings for ransom have been operating for a decade.
Once again, the assault was carried out in the middle of the night.
Men took a large number of young girls with them from a public high school in Zamfara State.
The local government confirmed this kidnapping, without specifying the number of victims captured, but sources on the spot evoke several hundred high school girls taken hostage.
As of December,
344 high school students had been captured
in neighboring Katsina state.
A kidnapping operated by local "
bandits
", and claimed twice by the jihadist group Boko Haram, based in the east of the country.
All were released a few days later.
Just last week,
42 people
, including 27 schoolchildren, were kidnapped in Niger state, also in northwestern Nigeria.
Despite promises from the government that said
negotiations were underway
, these people are still in the hands of their captors.
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Nigeria
Kidnappings
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