Nigeria: 30 pupils missing in latest attack on a school

Thirty pupils are missing and many others were injured after armed men attacked a school in northern Nigeria, an official said on Friday.

The Kaduna State Commissioner for International Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, said in a statement that the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization was attacked on Thursday night.

While 180 students have been brought to safety, 30 boys and girls could not be accounted for, he said. Several members of staff were also kidnapped.
Aruwan said that a large number of armed bandits had carried out the attack and that the military had responded.

Members of the police, army and air force are now searching for the missing students, he said.

The attack is the latest in a spate of kidnappings in Nigeria and growing insecurity.

There were three incidents between December and February in which bandits abducted hundreds of schoolchildren. In December, more than 300 boys were abducted from a school in Kankara. Last month, more than 300 girls were taken from a school in Jangebe.

Besides the mass abductions of students, the bandits also raid villages and highways to kidnap large numbers of people, especially in north-western Nigeria. The abductions are often carried out for ransom.

Last year, German Development Minister Gerd Mueller had weighed setting up an exit program to reintegrate former Boko Haram militants into society.
However, this has now been abandoned in favor of a transit center to rehabilitate young people, according to a government response to a parliamentary question seen by dpa.