140 students are missing after gunmen attacked Nigerian school News of Crime

Police said gunmen attacked Bethel Baptist High School in southern Kaduna state overnight.

About 140 students have been missing after a search of a boarding school by armed men in Nigeria’s Kaduna state on Monday, police said they are in hot pursuit along with the military.

The attack is the 10th mass school kidnapping in northwestern Nigeria since December, blamed on armed bandits demanded by authorities to pay ransoms.

Police said gunmen attacked Bethel Baptist High School in southern Kaduna state overnight.

“They … subdued the school’s security guards and broke into the students’ shelter, where they kidnapped an unspecified number of students in the woods,” a police statement said, rescuing 26 female teachers.

Father John Hayab, the school’s founder, told Reuters news agency that about 25 students had managed to escape.

About 180 students attended the school and were in the process of taking exams, according to Hayab, whose 17-year-old son fled and his parents, Hassana Markus, was among the missing daughters.

Local residents who refused to identify him said security officials closed the school on Sunday night from 11pm to 4pm on Monday.

“The kidnappers took 140 students, only 25 students escaped. We still don’t know where the students have been taken, ”school teacher Emmanuel Paul told AFP news agency.

State police spokesman Muhammed Jalige Kaduna confirmed the attack but was unable to provide details of the number of students taken.

“Police tactical teams went after the kidnappers,” he said. “We’re still on a rescue mission.”

Political problem

Armed men, known locally as bandits, have set up an industry to kidnap students for rescue in northwestern Nigeria, which has been particularly hard hit by the state of Kaduna. Nearly 1,000 people have been taken from schools since December last year, more than 150 of whom remain missing.

The kidnappers have targeted roads, private residents and even hospitals. In the early hours of Sunday, gunmen abducted six people including a one-year-old child at a northern state hospital in Kaduna.

The Nigerian school kidnappings were first carried out by Boko Haram armed groups and the Islamic State in the West African Provinces, but tactics have now been adopted by other shipowners.

In February, President Muhammadu Buhari called on state governments to “review the policy of rewarding bandits with money and vehicles,” and warned that the move could be a disastrous boomerang.

The unrest has become a political problem for Buhari, a retired general and former military official who has come under heavy criticism for his notable gang attacks.

High-profile school kidnappings In 2014, more than 270 schools were kidnapped by Boko Haram from the town of Chibo. About 100 of them are missing.