LAGOS: Police have shown that 136 pupils were abducted by gunmen in northern Nigeria before this past week, including some as young as five years older, the institution’s proprietor said Thursday.
Gunmen on bikes targeted Salihu Tanko Islamic School on Sunday, killing one man and abducting three educators also, college proprietor Umar Idris told The Associated Press.
After weeks of uncertainty of the number of pupils were accepted, Niger state authorities issued a statement Thursday putting the cost at 136 students missing.
Idris said the amount still might be increase, however, because college officials have yet to be able to attain each the visitors to verify whether their kids return home.
“We’ve sent a message out requesting parents who still have not reported on the faculty to accomplish this,” Idris said, adding that three educators were kidnapped.
Ashiru Adamu Idrisa told reporters that his three brothers were among those shot by gunmen, the youngest only 5 years of age.
“Everything I saw was dreadful,” he explained.
“Right before the eyes my kids were removed.” Additional preschoolers were left as they couldn’t keep pace once the gunmen hurriedly transferred those abducted to the woods.
“The 11 kids were mostly aged between 4 and 3 plus they lacked the endurance to keep up with the gunmen, therefore that they had been left on how” Idris said, adding the preschoolers were seen hours after the assault.
The school’s students vary in age between 3 and 14, and parents have been worried that a few of the most youthful kidnapping victims might be not able to live in the woods.
Before this past week, parents of these abducted kids criticized that the government’s reaction to the catastrophe, also pleaded for the return of the sons and brothers.
“Frankly, I’ll state that we do not own a government, since even before this event occurred you heard people crying that they were arriving, then once it occurred, and you also visit the police station, no action has been taken,” explained Rabiu Garkuwa, parent of 2 of those kidnapped kids.
Gunmen have abducted hundreds of pupils in northern Nigeria this season, and the authorities has been not able to stop the spate of abductions for ransom.
Consequently, many colleges are forced to close because of the worries about the kidnapping threat.
Before this past week, 14 pupils and personnel from Greenfield University at Kaduna country were published after spending over a month .
The gunmen who had thousands and thousands of dollars in ransom had previously murdered five additional pupils to induce the pupils’ parents to increase the cash.