BBC
Nigeria-based Islamist militant group Boko Haram has said it was behind last week’s kidnapping of hundreds of schoolboys in the north-western Nigerian state of Katsina.
More than 300 pupils are unaccounted for, but others managed to escape.
The authorities had previously blamed “bandits” for the attack.
Boko Haram has been notorious over the last decade for school kidnappings, including in Chibok in 2014, but these have taken place in the north-east.
In an audio message about the abductions, its leader Abubakar Shekau said “what happened in Katsina was our responsibility” and that his group opposed Western education.
This year hundreds of people in Nigeria’s north-west region have been killed in attacks by what authorities have called criminal gangs, but until now it has been unclear whether they had links with Boko Haram.
Abuja [Nigeria], December 16 (ANI/Xinhua): The national union of Nigerian teachers on Tuesday threatened to down tools over recent attacks on schools, including Friday s abduction of students in the country s northwestern state of Katsina.
Recent attacks have posed a threat to the lives of teachers and students, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) said in a statement, in response to the attack on the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara, in which more than 300 students went missing.
The latest attack in Katsina sent shivers through the spine of other members of the union in the academic community, the union noted.
The closure order affects schools in Kano, Kaduna, Zamfara and Jigawa states.
The Nigerian teachersâ union has also threatened to go on strike over insecurity in the country.
It says pupils and teachers are being targeted by gunmen and kidnappers.
Last week hundreds of students were abducted from the Government Science Secondary School in Kankara.
The Islamist militants Boko Haram said they carried out the abductions.
The federal government is yet to reveal the extent of discussions it is having with the abductors.
Some 333 students are still missing.
(Visited 29 times, 1 visits today)
Subscribe to our Youtube Channel :
Boko Haram men abduct hundreds of school students in Nigeria
Published : 15 Dec 2020, 23:46
By Bola Olajuwon, EFE-EPA
Children orphaned by the Boko Haram insurgency line up at the Special Orphans Learning Center initiated and managed by the Non Governmental Organisation (NGO) North-East Children s Trust in Maiduguri, Nigeria, 26 July 2018. File Photo: EPA-EFE.
Nigerian terror group Boko Haram on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of more than 300 high school students in Katsina State, in the country’s northwest.
Nigerian authorities are continuing operations to locate the pupils while anguish mounts for the parents.
“What happened in Katsina was done to promote Islam and discourage un-Islamic practices as Western education is not the type of education permitted by Allah and his Holy Prophet,” Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram said in an audio message published by HumAngle news.
Nigerians anxious after 330 boys kidnapped by extremists Parents of the missing Government Science secondary school students wait for news on their children in Kankara , Nigeria, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2020. Rebels from the Boko Haram extremist group claimed responsibility Tuesday for abducting hundreds of boys from a school in Nigeria s northern Katsina State last week in one of the largest such attacks in years, raising fears of a growing wave of violence in the region. (Source: AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) By LEKAN OYEKANMI and HARUNA UMAR | December 16, 2020 at 5:34 AM CST - Updated December 16 at 12:47 PM
KANKARA, Nigeria (AP) â Anger, fear and exhaustion. Anxiety has overwhelmed many parents in Nigeriaâs northern Kankara village who await word on their sons who are among the more than 330 kidnapped by extremists from a government boysâ school last week.