Yesterday, Friday, the authorities in Nigeria announced the start of an operation to rescue 317 high school students who were kidnapped by armed men, while new killings were recorded in a gold mine, amid the widening cycle of violence and chaos in different parts of the country.
"The Zamfara State Police Command, in cooperation with the army, has launched a joint search and rescue operation, with the aim of rescuing 317 schoolgirls who were kidnapped by armed gangs from the Girls' Official College of Science in the village of Gangibi," a local police spokesman, Mohamed Shehu, said in a statement.
Dozens of armed men stormed a school in northwestern Nigeria on Friday night and kidnapped 317 students from the dormitories, in the latest mass kidnapping in the country, local police announced, confirming the start of a rescue operation.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has strongly condemned the kidnapping.
In a related context, and in the same area from which the students were kidnapped, 22 people were killed in an armed attack carried out by unknown persons on a gold mine.
This came according to news reported by local media, which stated that unidentified gunmen on motorcycles launched an attack on a gold mine in the Dancurms area of Zamfara state.
The reports indicated that the gunmen opened fire indiscriminately, killing 22 people and wounding a large number.
Nigerian forces are facing an ethnic insurgency, and at the same time, they are fighting a war against Boko Haram (Reuters)
Violent confrontations
It is noteworthy that the state of Zamfara has been witnessing violent confrontations for 5 years between the Fulani ethnic group, who are proficient in raising livestock, and some farming tribes in the region.
The clashes left about two thousand people dead, while thousands of others were forced to flee.
In the past five years, criminal gangs have intensified their attacks in central and northern Nigeria, carrying out numerous kidnappings, murders and rapes.
Last week, a gang kidnapped 42 people from a school in the neighboring Niger state.
Last December, more than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in Kankara, the birthplace of President Muhammadu Buhari in the state of Katsina, who was visiting the area at the time.