Policeman killed, more than 80 students abducted in attack on Nigerian
school
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[June 18, 2021]
BAUCHI/KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters)
-Gunmen killed a police officer and kidnapped at least 80 students and
five teachers from a school in the Nigerian state of Kebbi, police,
residents and a teacher said.
The attack is the third mass kidnapping in three weeks in northwest
Nigeria, which have authorities have attributed to armed bandits seeking
ransom payments.
Usman Aliyu, a teacher at the school, said the gunmen took more than 80
students, most of them girls.
"They killed one of the (police officers), broke through the gate and
went straight to the students' classes," he told Reuters.
Kebbi State police spokesman Nafiu Abubakar, said the gunmen killed one
officer during an exchange and also shot a student, who was receiving
medical treatment.
Police late on Thursday had not released the number of students missing,
and a spokesman for the Kebbi state governor said they were conducting a
tally of the missing.
The attack took place at a federal government college in the remote town
of Birnin Yauri. Abubakar said security forces were searching a nearby
forest for the abducted students and teachers.
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Atiku Aboki, a resident who went to the school shortly after the gunfire
stopped, said he saw a scene of panic and confusion as people searched
for their children.
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"When we got there we saw students crying, teachers
crying, everyone is sympathising with people," he said by telephone.
"Everyone was confused. Then my brother called me (to
say) that his two children have not been seen and (we) don't know if
they are among the kidnapped."
Bandits seeking ransom have kidnapped more than 800 Nigerian
students from their schools since December in a series of raids.
Some have been freed while others remain missing.
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The raids in the northwestern region are separate from Islamist
insurgencies centred on the northeast, where the Boko Haram militant
group made global headlines in 2014 when it abducted more than 270
schoolgirls from the town of Chibok.
(Reporting by Ardo Hazzad in Bauchi, Garba Muhammed in Kaduna,
Camillus Eboh in Abuja, Angela Ukomadu in Lagos, Writing by Estelle
Shirbon and Libby George;Editing by Nick Tattersall, Robert Birsel)
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