Bandits kidnap 15 seminary pupils in Nigeria

A general view of a classroom at Kuriga school in Kuririga on March 8, 2024, where more than 250 pupils kidnapped by gunmen. Nigeria’s President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on March 8, 2024 sent troops to rescue more than 250 pupils kidnapped by gunmen from a school in the country’s northwest in one of the largest mass abductions in three years. The Kaduna state attack was the second mass kidnapping in a week in Africa’s most populous state, where heavily armed criminal gangs on motorbikes target victims in villages and schools and along highways in the hunt for ransom payments. Local government officials in Kaduna State confirmed the kidnapping attack on Kuriga school on March 7, 2024, but they have still not given figures as they said they were still working out how many children had been abducted. (Photo by Haidar Umar / AFP)

Gunmen kidnapped 15 pupils from their Islamic seminary in northwestern Sokoto State Saturday, local sources said, days after the mass abduction of more than 280 schoolchildren in nearby Kaduna State.

Staff there said gunmen stormed Gidan Bakuso village in Gada district at around 0100 GMT Saturday, rounding up 15 pupils of the seminary as they slept outdoors.

“The gunmen were passing by the school with a woman they kidnapped from another part of town and the pupils were awoken by her cries,” said Liman Abubakar, the head of the seminary.

“The bandits seized 15 of the pupils, aged between eight and 14, and took them away along with the woman,” he added.

Kabiru Dauda, a member of Sokoto state parliament from the region confirmed the abductions.

“I received a call early this morning from my constituency that bandits had taken 15 pupils from a seminary,” he said.

Police officials in the state did not respond to AFP inquiries, which came hours before the state government launched a volunteer force to fight bandits in the state.

Already Friday, Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu sent troops to rescue more than 250 pupils kidnapped by gunmen from a school in the northwest, one of the largest mass abductions in three years.

Northwest and central Nigeria has for years been terrorized by criminal gangs. Known as bandits, they raid villages, kidnap and kill residents as well burn homes after looting them.

The gangs, who maintain camps in a vast forest, are also notorious for mass abductions from schools to extract ransom from parents and governments.

Informal Islamic seminaries that teach the Koran are common in majority Muslim northern Nigeria, where the students live largely on alms and menial jobs.

Kidnappings have been on the rise in the northwest.

Victims are usually released after ransom payment by their relations, but those who fail to pay are killed by their captors, their bodies abandoned in the bush.

The criminal gangs are motivated by financial gains and have no ideological leaning.

The authorities and analysts are concerned about their increasing alliance with the jihadists waging a 15-year old rebellion to establish a Caliphate in the northeast.