Over 300 Schoolgirls Kidnapped by Gunmen in Zamfara State, Nigeria

In a statement made on Friday, police confirmed that unidentified gunmen have kidnapped over 300 schoolgirls from a boarding school in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara. This is the second kidnapping of students to occur in Nigeria in just over a week.

Dozens of armed militants broke into the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe at around 1 a.m. on Friday, and began shooting before “packing schoolgirls onto vehicles or walking them toward the nearby Rugu Forest, which spreads over three states and hundreds of miles.” Sulaiman Tanau Anka, information commissioner for Zamfara state, told Reuters news agency that “unknown gunmen … took the girls away” in a midnight raid on the school. According to the statement made by Anka, “they came with vehicles and moved the students, they also moved some on foot."

credit: Sydney Morning Herald

Resident Musa Mustapha reported to the media that the gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from “interfering” while the gunmen spent several hours at the school. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties. However, by morning, parents and community leaders had identified 317 people to be missing. The police have said that security forces, backed by reinforcements, are in pursuit of the abductors.

According To The Associated Press, several large, armed groups of men operate in Zamfara state, described by the government as "bandits". They are known to kidnap for money, and to push for the release of their members from jail. Police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement that "the Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operations with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped."

A father of two missing girls said: "This is one of the states that is continuously being attacked by these gunmen. Abductions for ransom and raiding for villages… this is practically one of the major things that people in the north of the country are facing on a daily basis."

The charity Save the Children has said it was "horrified" about the news of the abductions. Mercy Gichuhi, as Save the Children’s Nigeria director, elaborated: “It is unacceptable that attacks on schools and students has become a recurring scenario in Northern Nigeria." She added, "These attacks put (the children) at risk of never returning to school, as they or their parents think it’s too dangerous.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has also responded to the event, confirming that more than 300 girls were estimated to have been abducted: “We are angered and saddened by yet another brutal attack on schoolchildren in Nigeria.”

Previous Incidents

Northern Nigeria has just seen its second kidnapping of students in just over a week. Unidentified attackers killed a student and kidnapped 42 people (including 27 students) in an overnight attack last week in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger. The state’s governor has recently announced that the gunmen have released all students and teachers involved, a day after the kidnappings in Zamfara. Before that, students were kidnapped from the Kagara Government Science College in Niger State on February 17th, dozens of schoolboys and staff are still missing.

However, these attacks are not a new phenomenon. In December 2020, over 300 boys were kidnapped from their school in Kankara, while President Muhammadu Buhari was visiting the region. Fortunately, the boys were all later released after negotiations with government officials, but the incident had already sparked a global response. Following the ordeal, three of the abducted boys reported to The Wall Street Journal that their kidnappers "told them a ransom had been paid for their release." Government officials in Nigeria have since denied paying the ransom, and stated that the "kidnappers released the schoolboys because the military had surrounded them."

The Zamfara governor, Bello Matawalle, has announced that he has closed all schools in the state, and President Muhammadu Buhari said in a statement that his administration "will not succumb to blackmail by bandits who target innocent school students in the hope of massive ransom payments."

School uniforms hang Friday inside a deserted dormitory where over 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped in Jangebe, northwest Nigeria, credit: NBC News

The latest incidents come six years after the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok (in the north-eastern state of Borno): an abduction that ignited the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign. The global outcry led to the formation of the Safe Schools Initiative, which is backed by former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and which raised over $30 million to protect schools. The number of children out of school in the country has risen to 13.2 million- the highest in the world, according to the United Nations, due to concerns over safety. "One in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria", the agency said in a recent report.

Following the recent surge in attacks and abductions, many Nigerian lawmakers have called for an investigation into the Safe School Initiative, though no investigation has yet been authorised.