Hundreds of students from a Nigerian school missing after a gun attack

Hundreds of children from a high school in northwestern Nigeria are missing after an attack by an unknown armed gang on the night of December 11th. The military later exchanged fire with the attackers in a forest, according to a statement made by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The attack took place in the President’s home state of Katsina, where the police and the military are still working to determine how many have been kidnapped. There were about 800 students at the boarding school in the Kankara district and parent and school employee has reported that roughly half of these are now missing.

“The police, Nigerian Army and Nigerian Air Force are working closely with the school authorities to ascertain the actual number of missing and/or kidnapped students,” Katsina State police spokesman, Gambo Isah, said in a statement.

The northwestern province of Katsin is regularly the location for kidnappings for ransom by armed gangs whereas in the northeast of the African country, it is usually militant Islamic groups such as Boko Haram that kidnap children.

In 2018, an armed Boko Haram group kidnapped more than 100 girls in the northeastern Nigerian town of Dapchi and six years ago, in 2014, the same group abducted more than 270 girls in the town of Chibok.