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Fear and prayers are over: the children have returned, in the arms of their parents. The horror is over. State television reported. However, it is not yet clear if all the children were released.
The Islamist terror group Boko Haram attacked the high school in Kankara in the northern Katsina region last Friday. 150 men broke into the building and kidnapped the students. In an audio message, the group had justified the kidnapping with an Islamophobic Western upbringing of the children. While the government spoke of 333 kidnapped schoolchildren, media reports assume that the number has almost doubled.
“Please send back all the troops that came to help”
In a video that made the rounds on social media in Nigeria on Thursday, children covered in dust are seen looking scared in front of a wooded area. The boys describe themselves as students from the attacked Kankara school. A man with an assault rifle can be seen in the background of the largely blurred video, which was not officially confirmed by authorities. In front of the camera, an older boy asks for a peaceful settlement with the kidnappers. “Please send back all the troops that have come to help,” he pleads in a broken voice.
Boko Haram has repeatedly carried out similar attacks. In April 2014, he abducted 276 girls from a school in Chibok, Borno state. Many are still missing today. According to the human rights organization Amnesty International, hundreds of teachers, schoolchildren and students have been killed or injured since 2012. Many abducted children would be forced to work as child soldiers.
Terrorist group spreads fear and terror
Boko Haram has been fighting violently for the establishment of an Islamic state of God in predominantly Muslim northeast Nigeria since 2009. At least 36,000 people have died and more than two million have been displaced in the conflict. Extremists repeatedly carry out attacks and raids on villages, churches, schools, security forces, politicians and representatives of the authorities.
The jihadist group has committed numerous atrocities in recent weeks. Among other things, he confessed to a massacre of dozens of farmers near Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. Boko Haram fighters are also said to have carried out an attack last weekend against a village near Diffa in neighboring Niger. At least 28 people died, most burned alive. (SDA / AFP / jmh)
