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Demonstration against kidnappings in Kaduna in May
Photo: KOLA SULAIMON / AFP
Armed attackers kidnapped 140 students from a boarding school in northwest Nigeria.
Of 165 students who were in the boarding school at the time of the attack, only 25 escaped the kidnappers, teacher Emmanuel Paul of the affected Bethel Baptist High School in Kaduna state told the AFP news agency.
"We have no idea where the students were taken."
Paul reported that the armed men had climbed over a fence to get onto the school grounds.
"Everything indicates that they came on foot."
A police spokesman confirmed the attack on the boarding school early Monday morning.
He did not provide any information about the number of kidnapped students.
A rescue operation is underway.
For years, attacks by criminal gangs have been increasing in the north and center of Nigeria.
The groups that the authorities call "bandits" kidnap school children and students in order to extort ransom and are also responsible for looting and cattle theft.
Nigeria has been in crisis for a long time.
Corruption, insecurity, ethnic conflicts and increasing violence are pulling the cohesion of the country.
The government is having great difficulty maintaining military operations across much of the country.
Attackers usually want a ransom
The attack on Bethel Baptist High School was the fourth of its kind in Kaduna since December.
In total, more than a thousand schoolchildren and students have been kidnapped in Nigeria in the past eight months.
According to the police, gunmen in the Nigerian city of Tegina only brought up to 200 children into their hands at the end of May.
Some of them are still in the hands of their kidnappers.
The gangs act primarily for financial reasons, although religious reasons also play a role in radical Islamic groups such as Boko Haram.
There is therefore growing concern that the criminals may be cooperating with jihadists.
They have been fighting for an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria for years.
mfh / AFP