The Boko Haram group has claimed responsibility for the abduction of hundreds of school students in northwest Nigeria, according to media reports.
More than 300 students are missing after gunmen on motorcycles stormed the Government Science School in Kankara last week and engaged security forces in a fierce gun battle, forcing hundreds of students to flee and hide in surrounding bushes and forest.
“I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are behind the kidnapping in Katsina,” said the leader of the group in a voice message released via social media.
“What happened in Katsina was done to promote Islam and discourage un-Islamic practices as Western education is not the type of education permitted by Allah and his holy prophet.”
The man professing to be the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, offered no proof for the claim and Nigerian authorities did not immediately comment when contacted.
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language, has waged an insurgency in the northeast of Nigeria since 2009 but has not previously claimed any attacks over to the northwest.
The kidnappings occurred in the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, who condemned the attack and ordered security stepped up in schools, with those in Katsina state closed.
The attack was initially blamed on armed groups locally known as “bandits”, who are active in the unstable region where kidnappings for ransom are common.
A joint rescue operation has been launched by Nigeria’s police, air force and army, according to the government. The army also intimated it had located the hideout of the men, and that a military operation was under way.
Some of the students who managed to escape the kidnappers have relayed their ordeal to the media. Usama Aminu was one of the lucky ones said, “When I decided to run, they brought a knife to slaughter me. But I ran away quickly.
“They said they would kill whoever is trying to escape. Then I began to run, climbing one rock to another through a forest.”
Muhammed Abubakar, 15, also got away by running through farmland and a forest in the dark.
He was among 72 boys who reached safety in the village of Kaikaibise, but seven of his friends are missing.
He said, “The bandits called us back. They told us not to run. We started to walk back to them, but as we did, we saw more people coming towards the dormitory.
“So I and others ran again. We jumped over the fence and ran through a forest to the nearest village.”
“I never thought I would see my parents again,” he added.
This is the first of such massive kidnappings in the northwest of Nigeria. Boko Haram, and a splinter group, the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), are waging an insurgency in Nigeria northeast and are thought to have only a minor presence in the northwest.
But concerns have grown of armed group advancements into the region, especially after fighters claiming to be in the northwest released a 2020 propaganda video pledging allegiance to Boko Haram’s leader.
The claim has therefore confirmed fears of the group’s expansion of its operations to the North West region of the country.
The United Nations Secretary- General, Antonio Guterres has condemned the attack and called “for the immediate and unconditional release of the abducted children and for their safe return to their families”.
The attack evokes memories of the 2014 kidnap of more than 270 girls by terrorist group Boko Haram in north-eastern Borno state.
Since then, only about 100 of those girls have been found or freed. Many have featured in propaganda videos and an unknown number are believed to have died.
#BringBackOurBoys has been trending on social media since the weekend – a reference to a similar hashtag used after the girls’ 2014 abduction.
