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At least 17 students abducted by the Boko Haram armed group from a school in northwestern Nigeria were rescued on Tuesday, an official said, adding that two students were killed in the operation, according to Anadolu Agency.
Katsina State Governor Aminu Masari told a local radio station that he had ordered an operation to be carried out after the group kidnapped hundreds of students from a boarding school in Kankara, a small town in Katsina, the Friday.
On Tuesday, Boko Haram, which had kidnapped hundreds of schoolchildren in the Chibok region of the country in 2014, took responsibility.
“Most of the abducted students are in the Zamfara forest in the neighboring province. Efforts are underway to save them,” he said.
Katsina State Police spokesman Gambo Isah said a security guard was injured during the operation and additional security forces would be dispatched to the area for search and rescue operations.
Motorcycle attackers stormed the Boys’ Government Science High School Friday night and engaged security forces in a fierce shooting that forced hundreds of students to flee and hide in the surrounding forest.
Defense Minister Bashir Salihi Magashi visited the area and promised that the students would be rescued soon, as parents and residents continued to demonstrate for their release.
The number of missing students is also unclear: 320 or 333, according to two versions of officials, while residents in Kankara put it at more than 500, the AFP news agency reported on Wednesday.
Masari has ordered the closure of all boarding schools in the state in the wake of the attack.
Child who survived the kidnapping
For Umar Ahmed, the nightmare began with confusion. Gunmen arrived at his school Friday night just as he and his classmates were about to go to bed.
His first thought was that the men were vigilantes, civilians taking on a police role, “so we were not afraid,” the 18-year-old told AFP.
But then, he says the intense shooting started. “We are terrified. Some of us ran towards the perimeter fence trying to escape, while others hid inside.
“They kept shouting that we should go back, that they were at the school to rescue us. And most of us came back,” he added.
Ahmad, lanky and soft-spoken, explained how the students were cornered under a tree, divided into three groups, and led through the forest.
“We had no footwear,” she said, her feet wrapped in black socks after they became spiky.
The teenager said the group walked for hours, in the direction of neighboring Zamfara state. “They beat us with tree branches and the flat side of their machetes,” he said.
But then came a stroke of luck.
He and a friend were able to hide behind a bush. They waited for absolute silence to prevail before retracing their steps back home to safety.
‘Cowardly attack’
In a statement, President Muhammadu Buhari condemned Boko Haram’s “cowardly attack” on “innocent children” and said the security forces had launched an operation.
The kidnapping took place hundreds of kilometers from the Boko Haram stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, raising fears of a massive advance in the group’s activities.
Fears that Boko Haram was making inroads into the northwest have been dormant for some time. About 8,000 people have died in the region since 2011, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.
The kidnappings occurred in Buhari’s home state, which was visiting the area when the attack occurred. Buhari has made fighting Boko Haram a priority, but the security situation in northern Nigeria has deteriorated since his 2015 election.
The government has not immediately reacted to Boko Haram’s claim or confirmed its authenticity.
