Gunmen in Nigeria kidnapped around 287 school pupils in the northern town of Kuriga on Thursday.
The kidnapping happened shortly after the morning assembly at a local government school in the town of Kuriga, in the Chikun region of the state of Kaduna.
The precise number of abducted pupils is continuing to be updated.
“The number of the kidnapped from the secondary section based on the statistics we took together with the parents is 187, while that of the primary section is 40 for now,” Sani Abdullahi, a home economics teacher, told Reuters.
Sani Abdullahi, the headmaster of the Kuriga primary school, said 187 secondary school students and 125 primary school pupils had gone missing, 25 of whom had since been found.
Local councilor for Kuriga Idris Maiallura told Reuters he had been to the school and stated that the gunmen took 100 primary school pupils.
An early report from the United Nations said the number of kidnapped children was at least “more than 100”.
“The students, aged eight to 15, were reportedly rounded up along with a teacher after gunmen riding motorbikes entered their school assembly area,” the humanitarian NGO said.
“Eyewitnesses reported that one pupil was shot during the kidnap raid.”
The latest update from Amnesty International says 287 “students and teachers” were kidnapped.
The rights group called on Nigerian authorities to rescue the students and hold perpetrators to account.
“Schools should be places of safety, and no child should have to choose between their education and their life,” Amnesty said on X.
Kaduna state Governor Uba Sani visited Kuriga and promised to get the students released, his office said.
Parents and residents blamed the kidnapping on a lack of security in the area.
“We don’t know what to do, we are all waiting to see what God can do. They are my only children I have on Earth,” Fatima Usman, whose two children were among those abducted, told Reuters by telephone.
Another parent, Hassan Abdullahi, said some locals had tried to repel the gunmen but had been overpowered.
“Seventeen of the students abducted are my children. I feel very sad that the government has neglected us completely in this area,” Mr. Abdullahi said.
The last major reported abduction involving school children in Kaduna was in July 2021, when gunmen took more than 150 students in a raid. The students were reunited months later with their families after ransoms were paid.
Kidnappings for ransom have become endemic in northern Nigeria, keeping thousands of children from attending school.
Thursday’s attack happened in a region controlled by Ansaru, a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, a Jihadist terror group responsible for prior mass kidnappings and the deaths of tens of thousands of people in recent years.
Reuters contributed to this report.
