In one of the greatest mass kidnappings in the nation in the past three years, gunmen reportedly abducted over 200 students from a school in the northwest Kaduna state of Nigeria, according to a teacher and locals.
The head teacher of GSS Kuriga school in Kaduna's Chikun district, Sani Abdullahi, reported that the gunmen, referred to as bandits in the area, opened fire early on Thursday.
He reported to local authorities that 100 students from the school's elementary courses and 187 students from the main school had been taken.
In the previous three years, there have been hundreds of mass kidnappings in the country's northwest and central regions, particularly Kaduna, of schoolchildren and college students.
After being held captive for weeks or months in camps tucked away in jungles that crisscrossed northwest states, almost all were freed in exchange for ransom payments.
According to locals, the gunmen stormed the government-owned school in Kuriga town right before the school day began at approximately eight in the morning.
Musa Mohammed, a local, told AFP, "We heard gunshots from bandits early in the morning, before we got up, and before we knew it they had gathered up the children."
"We are pleading to the government, all of us are pleading, they should please help us with security."
Although state officials acknowledged the incident, they stated that they were still determining the number of kidnapped youngsters. The number of persons reported missing or abducted is frequently reduced after those who were escaping the attack go back home.
Governor of Kaduna State Uba Sani stated, "As of this moment we have not been able to know the number of children or students that have been kidnapped," on a Thursday visit to Kuriga.
"We promise that each and every child will return. About ninety kilometres from the state capital, he informed the local villagers, "We are collaborating with the security services."
The abduction that occurred on Thursday occurs nearly ten years after militants from Boko Haram shocked the world by capturing over 250 schoolgirls from Chibok in northeastern Nigeria.
There are still several of those girls missing.
The kidnappings in Kaduna were denounced by Amnesty International.
The rights organisation declared on X, formerly Twitter, "Schools should be places of safety, and no child should have to choose between their education and their life."
"The Nigerian authorities must take measures immediately to prevent attacks on schools, to protect children's lives and their right to education."
Nigeria's armed forces are engaged in combat on multiple fronts, such as the country's long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast and armed criminals in the northwest.
Following a large kidnapping by militants last week that targeted women and children in a camp for individuals displaced by the northeastern fighting, over 100 persons were reported missing.
In September of last year, gunmen raided a university in northwest Zamfara State, kidnapping over thirty persons, including twenty-four female students.
Over 300 pupils were abducted by bandits during an attack on a girls' boarding school in the Zamfara village of Jangebe in February 2021.
According to local risk analysts SBM Intelligence, 3,620 persons were kidnapped in 582 kidnapping-related incidents in Nigeria between July 2022 and June 2023.
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