Nigeria’s spate of abductions worsened on Saturday as more than a dozen students and four women were kidnapped from a school in Gada, Sokoto.<\/p>\n
Local MP Bashir Usman Gorau told the BBC that 15 students were among those kidnapped early in the morning.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the army is still searching for hundreds of schoolchildren taken in the western town of Kuriga on Thursday.<\/p>\n
In an update, the state governor Uba Sani<\/a><\/span><\/span> told the BBC that at least 28 of these children had escaped.<\/p>\n Thursday’s kidnapping – which saw 280 students taken – was the biggest mass abduction from a school since 2021.<\/p>\n Gangs of armed men on motorbikes took primary and secondary school children between the ages of eight and 15, school authorities and parents said.<\/p>\n Nigerian troops are working with police and local search teams to comb forests within the state of Kaduna, where Kuriga is located, as well as neighbouring states.<\/p>\n Almost every family in the town is thought to have a child among those kidnapped.<\/p>\n One pupil, believed to be 14 years old, who had been shot by the gunmen and was being treated in hospital, has since died.<\/p>\n The kidnappings followed women and children taken from a remote town in Borno state the day before.<\/p>\n Mr Sani said the lack of boots on the ground was the main reason for the rise in kidnappings in the area.<\/p>\n Families of the abducted children have formed vigilante groups and are seeking help from neighbouring communities on the whereabouts of the children.<\/p>\n Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima is visiting Kaduna and is due to meet the governor.<\/p>\n President Bola Tinubu said on social media he was confident the victims will be rescued.<\/p>\n He tweeted: “Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members of these abducted citizens. Justice will be decisively administered.”<\/p>\n The Kaduna mass abduction has evoked memories of the nearly 300 girls in Nigeria’s north-eastern town of Chibok<\/a> in 2014.<\/p>\n In parts of northern Nigeria, parents fear for their children’s safety and are wary of allowing them to go to school. As a result, thousands of children are not attending school.<\/p>\n The last major abduction of children in Kaduna was in July 2021 when gunmen took more than 150 students.<\/p>\n They were re-united months later after their families paid ransoms.<\/p>\n