Suspected gunmen on Friday morning attacked a school in Zamfara State, abducting scores of students in the third mass abduction in the past three months in Africa’s most populous nation.
The attackers stormed the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe in the wee hours of the day.
Hours later, the police authorities in the northwestern state confirmed that three hundred and seventeen students (317) were abducted in the latest kidnapping, a development which Amnesty International described as an “attack on education in Northern Nigeria.”
Friday’s attack by assailants is not an isolated case. In the past few years, schoolchildren have become the latest high-profile kidnapping targets in the country, especially in the northern part, raising concerns over the safety of educational institutions across the nation.