At least 80 students and five teachers have been kidnapped by an armed gang from a school in the village of Birnin Yuri, northwest Nigeria. According to one of the teachers, most of them are female students. Police say an officer was killed in the attack.
The bandits entered the school grounds armed to the teeth on motorbikes after the officer was shot dead. They went straight to the classroom to take the students with them. A student was shot. The police launched a large-scale search.
A resident of Birnin Yuri, who arrived quickly at the scene, said the school yard was chaotic after the attack. Everyone was looking for their children. Everywhere people were crying and comforting each other. Everyone was confused.”
A wave of kidnappings
Nigeria has been facing a wave of student kidnappings since April 2014, when the jihadist group Boko Haram kidnapped 276 girls from their boarding school in Chibok. The current operation is the third kidnapping in northwest Nigeria in a week. On May 31 of this year, the gang took two hundred children. Gangs want to ransom students.
A group of students from Greenfield University in Kaduna, who were kidnapped on April 20, were released just this weekend. According to the parents of the released students, the government paid a ransom after the killing of five hostages, but the authorities refused to comment.
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