A woman prays for the kidnapped LEA Primary and Secondary School students in Kuriga, Kaduna state Nigeria on Saturday, March 9, 2024. Security forces swept through large forests in Nigeria’s northwest region on Friday in search of nearly 300 children who were abducted from their school a day earlier in the West African nation’s latest mass kidnap which analysts and activists blamed on the failure of intelligence and slow security response.
The kidnapping in Kuriga was only one of three mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria since late last week, a reminder of the security crisis plaguing Africa’s most populous country. A group of gunmen abducted 15 children from a school in another northwestern state, Sokoto, before dawn Saturday, and a few days earlier 200 people were kidnapped in northeastern Borno State.
The school sits by the road just at the entrance of Kuriga town, which is tucked in the middle of forests and savannah. Some villagers like Lawan Yaro, whose five grandchildren are among the abducted, say their hopes are already fading into fear.“We are crying, looking for help from the government and God, but it is the gunmen that will decide to bring the children back,” Yaro said.Since the 2014 abduction in Chibok of 276 schoolgirls, which sparked the global #BringBackOurGirls social media campaign, at least 1,400 Nigerian students have been seized from their schools in similar circumstances.