Gunmen abduct 317 schoolgirls in northwest Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria, February 26

Unidentified gunmen seized 317 schoolgirls in northwest Nigeria on Friday, the police said, the second such kidnapping in little over a week in a region increasingly targeted by militants.

School kidnappings, first practised by jihadist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, have become endemic around the increasingly lawless north, to the anguish of families and frustration of Nigeria’s government and armed forces. The police in Zamfara state, where the latest attack took place, said they had begun search-and-rescue operations with the army to find the “armed bandits” who took the girls at Government Girls Science Secondary School in the town of Jangebe.

Zamfara’s information commissioner, Sulaiman Tanau Anka, said the assailants came in firing sporadically during the 1 a.m. raid. “Information available to me said they came with vehicles and moved the students, they also moved some on foot,” he said. It is the third such kidnapping since December.Reuters