MAGA, Nigeria (AP) — A schoolgirl who was abducted with 24 others from a dormitory in northwestern Nigeria has escaped and is safe, the school's principal told The Associated Press on Tuesday, as hunters joined security forces in the search for the missing students in forests close to the school.
The girls were kidnapped before dawn on Monday, when gunmen attacked the dorm at the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Kebbi state's Maga
town. Local police said the gunmen scaled the fence to enter the school premises and exchanged gunfire with police officers before seizing the girls and killing a staff member.
No group has claimed responsibility for taking the girls, but analysts and locals say gangs of bandits often target schools, travelers and remote villagers in kidnappings for ransoms. Authorities say the bandits are mostly former herders who have taken up arms against farming communities after clashes between them over strained resources.
Mass school kidnappings are especially common in northern Nigeria, and the Kebbi school is close to conflict hot spots including Zamfara and Sokoto states, where several gangs are known to operate and hide out.
The student who escaped arrived home late Monday, hours after the kidnapping, according to the school principal Musa Rabi Magaji. Another student was able to escape the gunmen in the minutes after the raid and was not abducted, the principal told AP.
“They are safe and sound,” Magaji said.
A video verified by AP shows the two schoolgirls, who appear to be in their early teens, lost in thought and surrounded by family and other villagers, with hijabs covering their heads. High schoolers in Nigeria are usually aged between 12 and 17.
Security forces and hunters, meanwhile, have intensified efforts to find and rescue the others, local officials said. Security teams swept nearby forests where gangs often hide while others were deployed along major roads leading to the school.
Kebbi Gov. Nasir Idris visited the school on Monday and assured of efforts to rescue the girls, and Nigeria's Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu met with soldiers in the hours after the attack and directed “intelligence-driven operations and relentless day-and-night pursuit of the abductors,” according to an army statement.
“We must find these children. Act decisively and professionally on all intelligence. Success is not optional,” the army chief said.
By Tuesday morning, the dorm and the classroom block — a walking distance apart — were deserted. In Maga, families waiting for news of their children's freedom expressed anger and frustration.
Resident Abdulkarim Abdullahi, whose daughter and granddaughter — aged 13 and 10, respectively — were among the kidnapped children, said he overheard the noise from his house.
“I was at home when I suddenly heard gunshots from the school. We were told that the attackers entered the school with many motorcycles,” said Abdullahi.
Amina Hassan, wife of the school vice principal Hassan Yakubu Makuku, said the assailants broke into their house, which is on the school premises, and fatally shot her husband. He was also the school's chief security officer.
“Three of them entered and asked my husband, ‘Are you Malam Hassan?’ and he responded, ‘Yes, I am.’ They told him that we are here to kill you,” she told the AP.
At least 1,500 students have been seized in the region since Boko Haram jihadi extremists seized 276 Chibok schoolgirls over a decade ago. But bandits are also active in the region, and analysts say gangs often target schools to gain attention.
Analysts and residents blame the insecurity on a failure to prosecute known attackers, and the rampant corruption that limits weapons supplies to security forces while ensuring a steady supply to the gangs.
“Let’s say people have been kidnapped in the markets — it doesn’t go far, (or) if people have been kidnapped on the road — it doesn’t go far,” said Oluwole Ojewale, a security analyst at the Institute for Security Studies. “What gains traction is when (it is) strategic kidnapping, like school children.”
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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.
