Local sources told PREMIUM TIMES that the bandits attacked a privately run hostel opposite the school at around 11.24 p.m. and abducted many of the students in the residence.
Gunmen, locally known as bandits, on Tuesday night, abducted a yet-to-be-confirmed number of female students of the Zamfara State College of Health Technology, Tsafe.
Tsafe is a hotbed of banditry in the state. Several communities have been sacked and thousands killed and abducted in Zamfara State by groups of gunmen.
Efforts by the Nigerian government to clear the state of these gunmen have so far yielded little results and the situation is getting worse.
Local sources told PREMIUM TIMES that the bandits attacked a privately run hostel opposite the school at around 11.24 p.m. and abducted many of the students in the residence.
An older brother to one of the victims, Asamau Salisu, Usman Abdullahi, said his family was informed of his sister’s abduction Wednesday morning.
“We woke up to that phone call that my sister was one of the students taken,” he said.
Meanwhile, the police spokesperson in the state, Mohammed Shehu, confirmed the attack to this newspaper on Wednesday morning when our reporter reached out to him for comments on the incident.
He said the bandits broke into a rented apartment around 3 a.m. and abducted the students. He said four students of the school were abducted.
“Yes. But it was not inside the school as I’ve seen some of you saying. The attack was in an off-campus area. Five female students were abducted but one of them escaped while they were being taken into the forest and she has now returned home. The remaining four are with the bandits,” he said.
Mr Shehu added that the state police command has drafted its special forces alongside other security personnel to rescue the victims.
“As I speak with you now, our men are in the forest for rescue operations. I’ll update you,” he added.