Gunmen Abduct Students, Staff From School in Central Nigeria

(Bloomberg) -- Gunmen kidnapped students and staff from a school in Nigeria, the second attack of its kind in recent months, a presidential spokesman said.

The criminals abducted a “yet to be ascertained” number of people from a boys’ school in Kagara in Nigeria’s central Niger state, President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, said in an emailed statement. Hundreds of students were taken in the attack, Agence France-Presse reported, citing an unidentified government official.

The kidnapping, which took place on Tuesday night about 150 miles (241 kilometers) northwest of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, follows a similar attack on another school in December, when 344 pupils were abducted. They were all released within a week.

Buhari directed the security forces to “ensure the immediate and safe return of all the captives,” according to Shehu.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.