No fewer than 15 students have been reported missing following the mass abduction in the Gidan Bakuso area of Gada Local Government Area of Sokoto State. FIJ gathered from media reports that the aggressors invaded the community, shot one person and abducted the students from their school around 1:00 am on Saturday.
The incident happened barely 24 hours after reports of the abduction of about 100 primary school pupils and 187 secondary students in Kuriga, Chikun Local Government Area, Kaduna State. In both incidents, state actors described the aggressors as bandits.
However, these incidents are not the first mass abductions from Nigerian schools. Between January 2023 and the time of this report, FIJ found five different incidents of mass abduction on school premises across different states in northern Nigeria.
The two incidents in 2024 alone have, however, accounted for more than 80 percent of the victims of these mass abductions. Similarly, FIJ reported how about five pupils were kidnapped in a school bus in Ekiti in January.
Here is a timeline of the three other incidents and the number of students kidnapped in each:
JANUARY 2023: 6 PUPILS ABDUCTED IN NASSARAWA
In January 2023, not less than six pupils were abducted from their school premises at the Local Government Education Authority Primary School, Alwaza, in the Doma Local Government Area. FIJ found reports from community sources stating that the six pupils were kidnapped by heavily armed men around 7:00 am on January 20, 2023.
On February 3, all six kidnapped pupils were reportedly rescued through the combined efforts of the police and vigilante forces. The children were between the ages of five and seven at the time of the incident. They were reportedly rescued unhurt.
APRIL 2023: TWO STUDENTS ABDUCTED IN ZAMFARA
Two undergraduate students, identified as Zaynab and Maryam, were abducted from their hostels opposite the main campus of the Federal University, Gusau, on April 2, 2023. FIJ found media reports stating that the criminals disarmed the security personnel guarding the hostel and escaped with the two victims.
Most importantly, however, Zamfara has been a hotspot of kidnappings targeted at students and non-students alike. FIJ reported several attacks targeted at several hostels off the school premises in 2023.
SEPTEMBER 2023: 24 STUDENTS WERE KIDNAPPED IN ZAMFARA
Around 3:00 am on September 22, 2023, a group of armed men invaded three student hostels in Sabon Gida. A total of 24 students were reported to have been kidnapped in the incident.
FIJ reported a survivor’s account of this same incident, detailing how well-armed the kidnappers were and how they were rescued through a gun battle between the military and the criminals. Most poignantly, the survivor stated that the school authority and the security forces did not seem to care about the attacks.
Beyond these five incidents, there were other cases of student kidnappings in 2023 outside of the school premises. Notable among these incidents was the abduction of over 80 children in Zamfara State in April 2023; the kidnapping of eight students in Kaduna on April 8, 2023; the kidnapping of four children in Imo in May 2023; and the kidnapping of seven UNIJOS in June 2023.