Unidentified gunmen have kidnapped 317 schoolgirls in the northwest Nigerian state of Zamfara, police said in a statement on Friday, the second such kidnapping in little over a week.
Earlier, Sulaiman Tanau Anka, information commissioner for Zamfara state, told Reuters news agency that “unknown gunmen … took the girls away” in a midnight raid on the Jangebe Government Girls’ Secondary School.
“Information available to me said they came with vehicles and moved the students, they also moved some on foot,” Anka said, adding that security forces were hunting through the area.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also confirmed, saying more than 300 girls were estimated to have been abducted.
“We are angered and saddened and by yet another brutal attack on schoolchildren in Nigeria,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF’s Nigeria representative.
Police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in a statement that “the Zamfara State Police Command in collaboration with the military have commenced a joint search and rescue operations with a view to rescuing the 317 students kidnapped by the armed bandits in Government Girls Science Secondary School Jangebe”.
Friday's attack happened at 01:00 local time (midnight GMT) when a group of gunmen arrived at the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe town with pick-up vehicles and motorcycles, a teacher told news site Punch.
Some of the gunmen were dressed as government security forces, the report said, adding that they forced the schoolgirls in the vehicles.A parent said two of his daughters were among the missing girls.
“Two of my daughters aged 10 and 13 are among the about 300 girls the school authorities told us are missing,” parent Nasiru Abdullahi told DPA news agency via telephone.
But other witnesses have told the BBC that the armed men arrived on foot at the school.
The witness told BBC Hausa that more than 100 gunmen entered the school.
"They broke the school gate and shot at the security man. Then they moved into the hostels and woke up the girls, telling them it was time for prayers. After gathering all of them, the girls were crying and they took them away to the forest. They were also shooting in the air as they were marching to the forest," the witness said.
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. What has been done to secure schools?
A "Safe School Initiative" was launched after the Chibok girls were abducted to bolster security in schools in Nigeria's north-eastern region by building fences around them.
At least $20m ($14m) was pledged for the three-year project which was supported by the United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown, the former UK prime minister.
Many container schools were built as temporary learning spaces as part of the scheme, but it is not known if any fences were built in communities affected.
Though most of the recent kidnappings have happened in the north-west, which were not covered by the Safe Schools Initiative, the 2018 abduction of 110 schoolgirls from Government Science School, Dapchi in north-eastern Yobe state raised questions about the success of the initiative.
Earlier, a teacher at the Government Girls Secondary School Jangebe, who asked to remain anonymous, told AFP news agency that “more than 300 girls are unaccounted for” after the raid.
A parent said two of his daughters were among the missing girls.
“Two of my daughters aged 10 and 13 are among the about 300 girls the school authorities told us are missing,” parent Nasiru Abdullahi told DPA via telephone.
A police spokesman for the state did not immediately respond to calls and messages seeking comment.
“[According to local people] the gunmen arrived shortly midnight and operated for hours in this all-girls school in Zamfar state,” Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris reporting from Minna in Niger state said.
“This is one of the states that is continuously being attacked by these gun-men, abductions for ransom and raiding for villages … this is practically one of the major things that people in the north of the country are facing on a daily bases,” he added.
This is the second such kidnapping in a little more than a week in Nigeria’s north, which has seen a surge in activity by armed groups leading to a widespread and worsening breakdown of security.
Last week, unidentified attackers killed a student in an overnight attack on a boarding school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger and kidnapped 42 people, including 27 students. The hostages are yet to be released.
More than 300 boys were kidnapped from a school in December in Kankara, in President Muhammadu Buhari’s home state of Katsina, while he was visiting the region.
The boys were later released after negotiations with government officials but the incident triggered global outrage.
