Nigerian authorities step up efforts to rescue kidnapped students

Nigerian authorities have stepped up efforts to rescue students abducted by armed men who raided a school in Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Gunmen on motorcycles staged an attack on the Government Science School at Kankara in Nigeria's north-western Katsina state late on Friday.

Hundreds of pupils feared missing after gunmen attack school in Nigeria’s northwest

Hundreds of Nigerian students are presumed missing or kidnapped after gunmen stormed a secondary school in the country’s restive northwest.

The bandits engaged security forces in a fierce gun battle, forcing hundreds of students to flee and hide in surrounding bushes and forest.

Aminu Bello Masari, the governor of Katsina State, said government forces had intensified their efforts to find and free any kidnapped students. 

Masari noted the number of hostages was still unclear.

"The school has a population of 839 and so far, we are yet to account for 333 students," Masari told a federal government delegation in his office on Sunday.

He said many of the boys had managed to escape from the bandits' captivity and flee.

"We are still counting because more are still coming out of the forest," Masari said.

"Up till this moment, no one can give a precise figure of the children abducted," he said, adding that students who escaped confirmed some of their peers had been taken.

"Soldiers are currently in the bushes fighting the bandits. We will do all we can to ensure all the abducted children are reclaimed," he said.

National police spokesman Frank Mbas said "additional operational and investigative assets to support the ongoing search and rescue operations" had been deployed to the region.

Osama Aminu Maale, one of the abducted students who had managed to escape, said 520 students were initially kidnapped. "There were a total of 520 of us that were taken by the gunmen from the school."

"After they took us away we stopped inside the bus where they made the older students take a headcount. We counted 520," the 18-year-old student told AFP in a phone interview.

However, in a bulletin on Sunday, BBC quoted Buhari's spokesman Mallam Garba Shehu as saying that only ten children remained in the hands of the gunmen. 

Buhari's spokesman cited eyewitnesses who reported that they had escaped from their abductors.

In the meantime, since the attack took place, all secondary schools in the state have been shut.

However, parents of students have converged on the secondary school, begging the authorities to secure the release of the boys who had not been able to escape.

UNICEF in a statement on Sunday said it "condemns in the strongest possible terms this brutal attack and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all children and their return to their families."

The body said it was "deeply concerned about these acts of violence" against the teenagers.

Boko Haram has kidnapped at least 1,000 girls since 2013: UNICEF

The United Nations (UN)’s children’s agency says at least 1,000 children have been abducted by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria since 2013.

"Attacks on schools are a violation of children's rights. This is a grim reminder that abductions of children and widespread grave violations of children's rights continue to take place in northern Nigeria," it said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned the kidnappers' attack and called for the students' release.

Guterres "reaffirms the solidarity and support of the United Nations to the Government and people of Nigeria in their fight against terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime," his office said in a statement on Sunday.

Buhari has urged security forces to arrest the gunmen.

"Our prayers are with the families of the students, the school authorities and the injured," he said.

He said on Saturday that military forces had located the position and exchanged fire with the kidnappers.

Katsina is among several areas in northwest Nigeria that have been repeatedly attacked by "bandits" who kidnap for ransom and rustle cattle.

Boko Haram terrorists slaughter 43 farm workers in Nigeria’s volatile northeast

Boko Haram has killed dozens of farm workers in the volatile northeastern Nigerian state of Borno.

The north and northeastern states of Nigeria have been wracked by years of violence involving clashes between rival communities over land, attacks by heavily-armed criminal gangs, and reprisal killings by vigilante groups.

In particular, Boko Haram and the West Africa Province (ISWAP) branch of the Daesh terrorist group have increasingly targeted loggers, herders and fishermen in their violent campaign, accusing them of spying and passing information to the military and the local militia fighting them.

Boko Haram last month took the lives of two dozen farmers working on their irrigation fields near Maiduguri in two separate incidents.

More than 30,000 people have been killed and nearly 3 million displaced in a decade of Boko Haram's violence in Nigeria, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Boko Haram’s violence has spilled over into the neighboring countries of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon, which have created a joint military force to fight the terrorists.

Violence by Boko Haram has affected 26 million people in the Lake Chad region and displaced 2.6 million others, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk