Another horrible incident of Kidnapping has again taken place in Zamfara State where armed men kidnapped 73 children from a school.
This is the latest mass abduction in the state,police said in a statement on Wednesday.
According to the Police, a large number of armed bandits invaded the Government Day Secondary School in the village of Kaya in rural Zamfara state at 11:22 am local time
“The command … has deployed search and rescue team that was mandated to work in synergy with the military to ensure the safe rescue of the abducted students,” Zamfara police spokesman Mohammed Shehu said in the statement.
Armed gangs seeking ransoms have kidnapped more than 1,100 pupils in more than a dozen attacks on schools or colleges across northwest Nigeria since December 2020, adopting a tactic first used by Islamist insurgents in the northeastern part of the West African nation.
Zamfara’s government ordered all statewide schools to close to prevent further attacks, Ibrahim Dosara, the state’s information commissioner, The Police said they had also increased security around Kaya to prevent further attacks on the community.
The school had more than 500 children enrolled.
Zamfara is among four states in northwest Nigeria that have taken measures to try to curb the security crisis. They have banned the sale of fuel in jerry cans and the transport of firewood by truck in hope of disrupting gangs who travel by motorbike and camp out in forests.
Meanwhile, the Zamfara state government has imposed curfew has imposed curfew in all the 14 Local Government Areas of the state, following the abduction of over 100 students of Government Day Secondary School in Kaya, Maradun Local Government Area, the governor’s home town.
Govenor Bello Matawalle, has also ordered the immediate and total closure of all primary and Secondary schools across the State to prevent future occurrance of the incident.
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Also the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, has also issued an order, restricting movements in certain local governments and areas of the state in obvious response to the increasing banditry in that part of the country.
The Commissioner of Police in Zamfara State, CP Ayuba Elkana, who disclosed Matawalle’s directives while addressing journalists shortly after a closed-door security meeting at the Government House, said all primary and secondary schools in the state remained closed till further notice.
He said: “Following a security threat, the governor has directed the closure of all primary and secondary schools with a view to ensure safety of citizens in the state.
“In Gusau, the state capital, the lockdown would start from 8pm to 6am, while the remaining 13 local government areas would be from 6pm to 6am”.
The state police chief explained that all security personnel were directed to ensure the total compliance of the governor’s order, even as he called on the public to remain calm and law abiding as well as support the security in their bid to protect people and their properties in the state.
But the state’s Police Command has later put the number of abducted students at 73, as against the initial 100.
In a different statement by the public relations officer, a Superintendent of Police, Muhammad Shehu, said the Command has deployed search and rescue team to work with the military and ensure the safe rescue of the abducted students
The statement appealed to the public, especially, parents and relatives of the abducted students to exercise patience and continue to pray for the success of the ongoing rescue operation.
Gunmen Suspected to be bandits abducted scores of students at Kaya Day Secondary School in Maradun council area, after invading the school at about 11am yesterday and took the students to an undisclosed location.