It was originally reported that 215 pupils had been
kidnapped from St. Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state,
early on Friday morning – but the figure was revised
upwards to 303 students and 12 teachers, according to The
Christian Association of Nigeria.
The association’s
chair who reportedly visited the school on Friday said that
more than 80 students had been captured after trying to
escape during the abduction by armed assailants. The
students were both male and female, aged 10 to
18.
Second mass abduction this week
The number
snatched from the Catholic school in the centre of the
country exceeds the 276 girls abducted during the infamous
Chibok
incident of 2014 and is the latest in a series of mass
abductions – including earlier this week when 25
pupils were taken from a school in Kebbi state.
No
group has yet claimed responsibility and authorities have
deployed security forces to try and locate the students and
their captors. Niger state has reportedly closed all schools
until further notice.
Perpetrators must be held
accountable
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina
Mohammed – a former environment minister in Nigeria
– said in a social media post that schools should be
“sanctuaries for education, not targets…We must protect
schools and hold perpetrators accountable.”
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The
UN’s top official in the country, Resident and
Humanitarian Coordinator Mohamed Fall, posted that news of
yet another mass abduction was heartbreaking, coming just
days after the kidnappings in Kebbi.
He passed on his
sympathies to the families of those taken and their
communities, adding that all efforts must be made to ensure
their safe return of students and staff.
“It’s
time to fully implement the Safe School Principle,” he
said, which was launched at the First International
Conference on Safe Schools in Oslo, Norway, in 2015. Nigeria
was among the nations who endorsed the Safe Schools
Declaration that year.
Stand with the
victims
UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said this week it
is continuing to work closely with government partners,
civil society and communities, to strengthen child
protection systems in line with the declaration that no
child should be put at risk while pursuing an
education.
The UN culture, education and science
agency’s (UNESCO) office in Nigeria
also condemned Friday’s latest mass abduction, saying that
schools must never be targets.
“We stand with the
victims, their families and the Government of Nigeria and
call for the immediate release of all abducted children,”
the agency
said.
