More than two hundred people are missing after gunmen attacked a school in Kaduna, northwestern Nigeria, in the second mass abduction within a week.
Local government officials in Kaduna state confirmed the kidnappings from Kuriga school on Thursday, but did not provide figures as they were working out how many children had been abducted.
Grow your business with us
A search and rescue team had been deployed to try and rescue the children.
According to reports, about 175 of those still missing are believed to be between the ages of eight and 15.
Parents and residents blamed the abductions on a lack of security in the area.
Amnesty International called on the authorities to safely rescue the students and hold the perpetrators to account.
“Schools should be places of safety, and no child should have to choose between their education and their life,” the rights group said on X, as it called on the authorities to also “take measures immediately to prevent attacks on schools, to protect children’s lives and their right to education.”.
“We don’t know what to do, we are all waiting to see what God can do. They are my only children I have on Earth,” Fatima Usman, whose two children were among those taken, told the Reuters news agency by telephone.
Another parent, Hassan Abdullahi, told Reuters that local vigilantes had tried to repel the gunmen but had been overpowered.
“Seventeen of the students abducted are my children. I feel very sad that the government has neglected us completely in this area,” Abdullahi said.
Recall, In 2014, the Boko Haram armed group kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in Borno state’s Chibok village.
The last major reported abduction involving pupils in Kaduna was in July 2021, when gunmen took more than 150 children in a raid. They were reunited months later with their families after they paid ransoms.