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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Armed men invaded a boarding school in northwestern Nigeria early Saturday and abducted 15 children, police told The Associated Press, about 48 hours after nearly 300 students were taken hostage in the conflict-hit region.
School abductions are common in Nigeria’s northern region, especially since the 2014 kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls by Islamic extremists in Borno state’s Chibok village shocked the world. Armed gangs have since targeted schools for kidnap ransoms, resulting in at least 1,400 abducted since then.
The gunmen in the latest attack invaded the Gidan Bakuso village of the Gada Local Government Area in Sokoto state at about 1 a.m. local time and headed to the Islamic school where they seized the children from their hostel before security forces could arrive, Sokoto police spokesman Ahmad Rufa’i told the AP.
A police tactical squad was deployed in search of the students but the inaccessible roads in the area challenged the rescue operation, Rufa’i added.
“It is a remote village (and) vehicles cannot go there; they (the police squad) had to use motorcycles to the village,” he added.