Published on: Tuesday, December 15, 2020
By: AFP
File pic - Armed hunters gather before looking for the abducted schoolgirls in Maiduguri, Nigeria. (AP)
KANO: Nigerian authorities stepped up efforts to rescue students abducted by armed men who raided their hostels.
UN children’s agency Unicef condemned the assault on the school in Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Gunmen on motorcycles stormed the Government Science School at Kankara late on Friday and engaged security forces in a fierce gun battle, forcing hundreds of students to flee and hide in surrounding bushes and forest.
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State governor Aminu Bello Masari, who visited the school on Saturday, said soldiers were working to locate and free the hostages.
An audio message from a man identifying himself as the leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram has claimed that the armed group was responsible for the abduction of hundreds of students from an all-boys school in the northwestern state of Katsina.
The number of missing students remains unclear. Military spokesman General John Enenche told Channels TV on Monday that 333 pupils were unaccounted for after heavily armed gunmen raided the all-boys Government Science Secondary School in the town of Kankara.
“I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are behind the kidnapping in Katsina,” said the man in Tuesday’s voice message.
Boko Haram Claims Responsibility For Kidnapping Nigerian Schoolboys africaleader.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from africaleader.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Musa said the Services Chiefs should be sacked because they have done enough.
The lawmaker made the remark on the floor of the senate while contributing to a motion on the recent kidnapping of students at the Government Science School in Kankara, Katsina State.
He lamented that Nigerians are dying daily due to insecurity.
“Every day, people are dying and nothing is happening, and we continue to talk, we continue to go and console them. We can’t bring those lives back.
“We can’t continue to be leaders, when the people we are leading are being killed every day. What are the police doing?
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File photo of Nigerian military: DVIDS
Nigerian military troops exchanged gunfire with about 100 gunmen in an attempt to rescue about 300 children who had been kidnapped from the Government Science School in Kankara, Nigeria.
The gunmen arrived on motorcycles and attacked the school on Friday. Many of the children fled and hid in the woods surrounding the area, but nearly half of them were rounded up, split into smaller groups, and taken by the gunmen. The school normally serves about 800 children.
Musa Adamu, a student at the school, said that he and several classmates jumped out of windows as soon as the gunfire erupted. “We headed to the fence and climbed on it and jumped down,” he said to CNN. “The gunshots sound got louder, we ran in different directions … into the forest. Most of us had no shoes on, and we kept running until we got tired and the sound of the gunshots faded.”