Gunmen have abducted several Koranic students in central and northern Nigeria, where the activities have multiplied since the end of last year, authorities and residents said on Sunday.
“An unknown number of students at the Salihu Tanko Islamic School have been abducted along with bus passengers,” the Niger State government said on Twitter after a gun attack.
The kidnappers “released eleven children too young to walk”, according to the same source, who condemned the kidnapping and ransom kidnapping in the central part of the most populous country in Africa.
There were about 200 children at the Salih Tanko Koranic seminary at the time of the attack, but many were able to escape, said one of his executives, who asked not to be named, for his safety.
“At first they took more than a hundred students, but then they left those they considered very young, between 4 and 12 years old,” he told AFP. He stressed that he is not able to say exactly how many students were abducted by the kidnappers.
The new kidnapping was recorded the day after the release of 14 university students in the state of Cantuna (north), after 40 days of hostage-taking.
Five students were executed by their captors in the days following their abduction, to escalate pressure on families and authorities to pay a ransom.
According to local media, the families admitted that they paid a total of 180 million naira (357,000 euros) to set their children free.
Armed gangs, whose members are generally called bandits by the authorities, have been terrorizing the population of northwestern and central Nigeria for the past decade. They attack villages, commit animal theft, kidnap for ransom.
Recently, gangs have been particularly active in attacks on educational institutions: they have abducted more than 730 children and adolescents since December 2020.
