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A distraught teenager, speaking both English and Hausa in the video seen by AFP, said he was among 520 students abducted by “the Abu Shekau gang.”
A Boko Haram. Image: AFP.
KANKARA – The jihadist group Boko Haram released a video on Thursday in which it claimed to show schoolchildren captured in a mass kidnapping in northwestern Nigeria last week.
A distraught teenager, speaking in English and Hausa in the video seen by AFP, said he was among 520 students abducted by “the Abu Shekau gang.”
The teenager was surrounded by a large group of children, some very young looking, who were huddled under a tree, looking dirty and exhausted.
The assault last Friday on a rural school in Kankara, Katsina state, was initially attributed to criminals, known as bandits, who have terrorized the region for years.
But on Tuesday Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack, which occurred hundreds of kilometers (miles) from its stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, the birthplace of a brutal decade-long insurgency.
The video was released with a recording of a voice that resembles that of the group’s elusive leader, Abubakar Shekau.
He reiterated the liability claim.
“Earlier I posted an audio confirming that our people did God’s work, but people denied it,” said the voice. “Here are my men, and their sons have spoken.”
The video was sent to AFP through the same channel as previous messages from Boko Haram.
Security sources told AFP on Wednesday that the operation was carried out on the orders of Boko Haram by a notorious local gangster named Awwalun Daudawa, in collaboration with Idi Minorti and Dankarami, two other crime bosses with strong local supporters.
The government has not immediately reacted to Boko Haram’s claims or confirmed the exact number of missing children.
Two reports from different officials have put the number of schoolchildren at 320 or 333.
Shekau was behind the kidnapping of 276 schoolchildren in Chibok in 2014 that sparked global outrage.
Small protests were held on Thursday to press for the release of children in Katsina, as well as in the capital Abuja.
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