Gunmen Abduct 25 Girls From School in Nigeria

Gunmen Abduct 25 Girls From School in Nigeria

Gunmen attacked a boarding school in Nigeria, killing the vice principal and kidnapping 25 girls.

The attack happened at around 4 PM local time at the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, located in Kebbi State, northwestern Nigeria.

From the BBC:

The attackers “engaged police personnel on duty in a gun duel” before scaling the perimeter fence and seizing the students from their hostel, a statement said.

One member of staff was killed while trying to protect the students. A second sustained gunshot wounds and is now receiving treatment.

Eyewitnesses described a large group of attackers, known locally as bandits, who arrived firing sporadically to cause panic.

Residents told the BBC that the gunmen subsequently marched a number of girls into nearby bushland.

The police said they had deployed “additional police tactical units, alongside military personnel and vigilante groups” to the area.

A coordinated search and rescue operation is underway in surrounding forests and suspected escape routes.

One official said that one girl escaped captivity and returned home.

Principal Musa Rabi Magaji informed the media that a girl who escaped the school after the attack, but was not abducted, also returned home.

No group has taken responsibility for the attack and kidnapping.

However, kidnapping schoolgirls is not uncommon in northern Nigeria, where many radical Islamic terrorist groups are prominent.

Who can forget Boko Haram kidnapping almost 300 schoolgirls in Chibok in Borno State?

Gunmen kidnapped almost 300 children from a school in Kaduna in March 2024. They all came home later that month after the government negotiated their release.

A few weeks later, gunmen abducted 15 students in Sokoto state.

There have been so many more. It’s just awful.

Kidnappings are a lucrative business in the area. From Humanium in June 2024:

Today, kidnappings for ransom seem to be the prerogative of criminal gangs interested in getting rich rather than spreading an ideology (Sibani, 2024). Terrorists and other criminals have resorted to this style of attacking schools and educational facilities and abducting learners and teachers to hit hard on the government and attract the required attention and ransom payment (Save the Children, 2023).

In poor communities, ransoms are often paid in food, fuel or vehicles (Sibani, 2024). However, in most cases, kidnappings have become a sub-economy of sorts, as abductors rake in millions of naira in ransom payments. Between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted in 582 kidnapping cases with about 5 billion naira (USD 3,878,390) paid in ransoms (Salako, 2024). Previously, between 2011 and 2020, over USD 18 million were paid in ransoms (Sibani, 2024).

Nigeria has sought to make kidnappings unappealing by banning ransom payments.

A person can receive at least 15 years in prison if they pay a ransom. You can get the death penalty if the victim dies.

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