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Nigeria's President Buhari wants to achieve the "immediate and safe return of all prisoners" with a rescue operation
Photo: PHILL MAGAKOE / AFP
The pattern is familiar from terrorist acts by the Boko Haram group: armed men raid educational institutions in remote regions and take schoolchildren and teachers hostage.
Now there has been another mass kidnapping in Nigeria.
Coincident reports indicate that more than 40 people were kidnapped in a school attack in western Nigeria.
As reported by the AFP news agency, 27 pupils, three teachers and twelve relatives were abducted by strangers.
A student was shot dead in the attack, it said.
Apparently more than 600 students in the building
The attack took place early in the morning in the central state of Niger.
The attackers are said to have penetrated the building of the science college of the state school in Kagara with assault rifles.
A total of at least 650 students should have stayed in the building.
The background to the attack is still unclear.
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the kidnapping and ordered a rescue operation.
Buhari had instructed the security forces to ensure "an immediate and safe return home for all prisoners," said a spokesman.
Almost two months ago, the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped several hundred school children in the northern Nigerian state of Katsina, but released them a week later.
It remained unclear whether the ransom was paid.
The group Boko Haram, whose name translates as "Western education is sin", and other splinter groups have been terrorizing northern Nigeria's population for years.
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fek / dpa / Reuters