Nigerian gunmen have kidnapped around 30 students from a forestry college in northwestern Kaduna state.
It is the fourth mass kidnapping from a school in Nigeriasince December and the third this year.
What we know so far
- The armed attack took place at around 9:30 p.m. (2030 UTC) on Thursday.
- Students were abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Mando, Kaduna state.
- The Nigerian army rescued 180 people, who were initially taken, in the early hours of Friday.
- Both male and female students are thought to have been originally abducted from the co-educational school.
Were only female students taken?
DW correspondent Uwaisi Idris reporting from Nigeria said that it is believed attackers only took female students to the bush: “They [the students] were abducted at night and picked out the female students.”
It is “surprising” that the attackers’ interests appear to have “only been in the female students,” Idris said.
“The latest information we have is that the headcount [of those missing] is still going on to know the exact number of female students taken from the school,” he added.
But Kaduna state’s security commissioner, Samuel Aruwan, in a statement, said “about 30 students, a mix of males and females, are yet to be accounted for.”
this is a breaking news story and will be updated…
