More than 73 students of a day secondary school have been abducted by bandits in Zamfara state, northwest Nigeria, forcing the state to shut all schools and impose a curfew.
The students, some of whom were writing their mock exams, were abducted at Kaya Government Day Secondary School in Maradun on Wednesday afternoon.
The school’s vice-principal, Zayyanu Tsaba, was among those kidnapped.
The school authorities have said more than 300 students were on the premises at the time of the attack.
Some of them ran when the bandits struck, escaping into nearby farmlands.
The latest incident comes exactly a week after another group of abducted students and staff from the College of Agriculture and Animal Science in Zamfara were freed.
Now, Zamfara governor Bello Matawalle has announced the closure of all schools and imposed a curfew from 6pm to 6am in 13 local government areas and 8pm to 6am in Gusau, the state capital.
State police commissioner Ayuba Elkana said officers have been deployed to work with the military to search for and rescue the victims.
The latest wave of abductions in Zamfara follows new stringent policies by governments of adjoining northwest states to cut the supply of essential commodities to bandits operating from forests.
This, along with a rise in attacks from the military, has made the bandits more desperate.
More than 1,870 students have been abducted by bandits in the northwest, north-central and northeast states this year, besides the menace of terrorist elements such as Boko Haram in the northeast.
According to Unicef, more than 1,000 children have been abducted by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria since 2013, including 276 girls taken from their secondary school in the town of Chibok in 2014.
Since the insurgency erupted in the northeast in 2009, at least 2,295 teachers have been killed and more than 1,400 schools have been destroyed. Most of these schools have not reopened because of extensive damage or ongoing insecurity.
“Parents are grieving their children’s ‘disappearance’; siblings are missing their brothers and sisters – these children must be immediately and unconditionally released and safely reunited with their families,” Unicef said.
“It is horrifying that schools and schoolchildren continue to be targets of attack. We can only begin to imagine how frightened they are, and the impact this will have on their mental health and well-being.”
Unicef stressed that attacks on students and schools are not only reprehensible but a gross violation of the right to education.