Nigeria: Gunmen abduct around 30 students from a college in latest mass kidnapping

Nigerian gunmen have kidnapped around 30 students from a forestry college in northwestern Kaduna state.

It is the fourth mass kidnapping from a school in Nigeria since December and the third this year.

The armed attack took place at around 9:30 p.m. (2030 UTC) on Thursday. Students were abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Mando, Kaduna state. The Nigerian army rescued 180 people, who were initially taken, in the early hours of Friday. Both male and female students are thought to have been originally abducted from the co-educational college. Students attending the college are mostly aged 17 years or over.

Were only female students taken?

DW correspondent Uwaisi Idris reporting from capital city Abuja, Nigeria said that it is believed attackers only took female students to the bush: “They [the students] were abducted at night and picked out the female students.”

It is “surprising” that the attackers’ interests appear to have “only been in the female students,” Idris said.

“The latest information we have is that the headcount [of those missing] is still going on to know the exact number of female students taken from the school,” he added.

But Kaduna state’s security commissioner, Samuel Aruwan, in a statement, said “about 30 students, a mix of males and females, are yet to be accounted for.”

Frustration at Nigeria’s mass kidnapping crisis

The kidnappings are an indication of the growing insecurity in Nigeria, Idris told DW. He added that bad governance and poverty were also factors.

“Frustration and anger” is growing among Nigerians, who are asking “why is it happening again?” But so far, Idris said that people felt the government had failed to provide a practical solution.

According to Idris, strong emotions were compounded by the coronavirus pandemic: schools had recently reopened after COVID restrictions were lifted, but now many in northern Nigeria had shut again due to the frequent kidnappings. Children’s education was suffering as a result, Idris said.