Lagos. Nov 17, (dpa/GNA) – A group of heavily armed men has abducted 25 girls from a boarding school in north-western Nigeria, killing the deputy school head, as he attempted to stop them, a police spokesman in the Kebbi State said on Monday.
Another teacher suffered gunshot wounds in the early morning raid.
Police suspect a criminal gang behind the attack on the girls’ secondary school in Maga. The motive is unclear.
A search has been launched in the wooded country around the settlement with the aid of the military, they said.
Abductions, whether by criminal gangs or the Islamist Bako Haram militia, have become regular occurrences in the north and centre of Africa’s most populous country.
The abduction of 276 girls in Chibok in the north-eastern state of Borno by Boko Haram in April 2014, caused international outrage.
Boko Haram and other jihadi groups conducting an armed campaign to enforce strict Islamic rule in Nigeria largely make political demands in return for their release, while criminal gangs are after money or the release of their imprisoned members.
GNA