More than 300 students and teachers at the Catholic school of St. Mary in the Agwara district were forcibly taken and abducted by masked militiamen who stormed in on motorcycles and pick-up trucks. The mass abduction, in Niger State, in western Nigeria, carried out by an unidentified armed commando, marks the latest such tragedy. The episode comes just one week after the kidnapping of 25 female students in Kebbi State and the attack on the Church of Eruku, in the western state of Kwara, on 18 November. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the act committed during the night or issued ransom demands, but it is plausible that Boko Haram terrorists are behind it.
In a statement of the Diocese of Kontagora, sent to the Vatican’s Fides news agency, Diocesan Secretary Jatau Luka Joseph states that a security staff member was seriously injured during the attack, which is believed to have occurred between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. local time. “The Diocese of Kontagora,” the statement reads, “strongly condemns the attack and expresses deep concern for the safety of the kidnapped children and their families. Security agencies were immediately informed and have launched coordinated efforts to ensure that the hostages may return safely.”
In Nigeria, mass kidnappings for extortion are quite frequent. In the central and north-western states of the country, Africa’s most populous nation and also one of its richest in oil, they are usually committed by criminal gangs that authorities generically refer to as “bandits.” The northern part of the country has also been grappling for nearly twenty years with a jihadist insurgency that, according to the United Nations, has caused 40,000 deaths and over two million displaced people.
