Reuters
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Gunmen attacked a public girls’ boarding school in Kebbi State early Monday morning, killing the vice principal and abducting 25 female students, police said in the latest mass kidnapping incident in northwestern Nigeria.
Police spokesperson Nafiu Abubakar Kotarkosi said the attackers, armed with rifles and using coordinated tactics, stormed the public girls’ comprehensive secondary school in Maga town at around 4 a.m. local time, exchanging gunfire with police before scaling the perimeter fence and detaining the students.
Vice-principal Hassan Yaqub Makk was shot dead while resisting the attackers, it said, adding that another teacher was also injured in the gunfire.
Police said additional tactical units, soldiers and local vigilante groups were deployed in search and rescue operations to comb possible escape routes and the surrounding forest.
In northwestern Nigeria, schools are repeatedly kidnapped by armed groups demanding ransom payments, despite government promises to improve security in the region. In 2014, the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram kidnapped 270 schoolgirls from the northeastern town of Chibok. Many of the girls managed to escape or were later released, but others have not yet been returned.
