Afp

Updated Friday, March 8, 2024-08:01

  • Africa Boko Haram radicals kidnap more than 40 women in northeastern Nigeria

Gunmen have kidnapped

more than 280 students

in an attack on a school in northwestern

Nigeria

, according to a teacher and a resident of the area, while authorities have not given figures for now.

Mass kidnappings

for ransom

are a serious problem and affect the entire country, one of the most populous in Africa.

According to Sani Abdullahi, one of the teachers at Kuriga Secondary School in Chikun district, the staff managed to escape with many of the students while the men fired into the air.

"We are trying to find out the real number of kidnapped children," he told local authorities Thursday night.

"In Kuriga secondary school there are 187 missing children, while in the primary school 125 children were missing, but 25 have returned," he explained.

"More than 280 children have been kidnapped. At first we thought there were 200, but after careful counting, we discovered that there were just over 280," added Muhammad Adam, a local resident.

For their part, local authorities and the police have not yet given figures.

"At the moment, we do not know the number of children or students who have been abducted," Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani told reporters on the ground.

Amnesty International condemned the abductions in Kaduna and called on Nigerian authorities to

better protect schools.

"Schools should be safe places and no child should have to choose between their education and her life," the rights group said on X (formerly Twitter).

"Nigerian authorities must take immediate action to prevent attacks on schools," he added.

In recent years, criminal gangs have repeatedly attacked schools, mainly in rural areas of Nigeria's northwestern states.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came to power in 2023 promising to tackle insecurity, fueled by jihadist groups, bandits in the northeast and the outbreak of inter-communal violence in the central states. More than 100 women have been reported missing in the northeast of Nigeria, after a mass kidnapping attributed to jihadists, official sources announced on Thursday.