It is estimated that about 150 children were kidnapped by an armed gang in Nigeria yesterday afternoon while attending the Salihu Tanko Koranic school in the state of Niger. According to the first reconstructions, about twenty motorcycles driven by people armed to the teeth have reached the building and, after having fired a few shots, they would have taken the 150 students elsewhere. Some of them managed to escape while the Nigerian government reports that “the kidnappers released eleven children, who were too young to walk”. At least one person lost his life in the ambush.
“At first they took over a hundred students – said the school principal -, but then they let go of those they considered too small to walk, between 4 and 12 years old”. The number of children kidnapped has not yet been defined with certainty.
These mass kidnappings for ransom have become increasingly frequent in Nigeria where, since December, armed groups have kidnapped over 700 students demanding large sums of money from families and the government.