Over 250 children were kidnapped from a school in Kaduna State, northwestern Nigeria, on Thursday, March 7th. Pupils were about to settle in their classrooms at Kuriga School when gunmen on motorcycles burst onto the premises, firing into the air. They blocked exits before rounding up more than 200 students – 100 of them aged 12 and under – and then marching them off into a forest.
In recent years, Nigeria has seen a surge in kidnappings in schools and colleges across the country as gunmen, known locally as ‘bandits,’ abduct victims whom they use to demand ransom. A local risk analyst firm, SBM Intelligence, has recorded 4,777 kidnappings since President Bola Ahmed Tinubu took over in May 2022.
The latest school kidnapping comes nearly 10 years after the abduction by terror group Boko Haram of 276 school girls in Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014.