Nigeria kidnappings: Hunt for 300 girls as second abducted school group freed

Police in Nigeria have launched a search and rescue operation for 317 girls kidnapped from a school in the state of Zamfara.

The operation comes as 42 people kidnapped from a boarding school in a similar incident last week in Niger state were released.

The kidnappings are carried out for ransom and are common in the north.

President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the latest kidnapping as “inhumane and totally unacceptable”.

The United Nations Children Fund also condemned the abduction of the girls and called for their safe release.

The 2014 kidnap of 276 schoolgirls in the north-eastern town of Chibok by Islamist militants Boko Haram brought global attention to the scourge of raids on schools in Nigeria but the most recent attacks are suspected to be the work of criminal gangs.

Abduction

Every time children are taken from their schools by armed gunmen in northern Nigeria, the kidnapping of the Chibok girls is mentioned.

Similar raids took place before that well-publicised abduction but they received little publicity and they never involved girls.

But global attention generated by the #BringBackOurGirls campaign showed armed groups that the mass abduction of children was a sure way of applying pressure on authorities, including asking for ransom, although the authorities always deny paying.

The government does not appear to have a strategy for stopping these incidents from happening.

But two weeks ago, lawmakers from Zamfara state suggested offering amnesty to repentant kidnappers in exchange for sustainable economic opportunities.

It’s a controversial strategy but one that yielded some positive results in the Niger Delta, which saw a reduction in crime after a similar amnesty programme in 2009.

The government so far says it will not negotiate with criminals.

In the meantime, schools in rural northern Nigeria are more vulnerable than they’ve ever been.

By news