[ad_1]
Boko Haram kidnaps 300 children (again) in Nigeria: 5 things you need to know
More than 300 children were abducted from a school in Nigeria on Friday night. Since this morning it has been known that the kidnappers are the Islamist group Boko Haram. 5 things you should know about the current situation in Nigeria.
The raid
Kankara boarding school in northern Nigeria was a quiet place to study for hundreds of schoolchildren until last Friday. That changed last Friday when the school was attacked by about 150 motorcyclists, according to witnesses. Firing machine guns around them, they forced the schoolchildren into their bedrooms to prevent them from escaping. In the chaos of the subsequent gun battle with the local police, some students managed to escape into the nearby forest.
One of them is Usama Aminu. In this video, which is available for the Reuters news agency, he reports on the fateful night:
Various information is currently circulating on the number of abducted children. After meeting with security forces on Sunday, Aminu Masari, governor of the Katsina region spoke from 333 missing schoolchildren. However, after a detailed examination of the school record, the Nigerian newspaper “Daily Trust” appeared. 668 missing.
As part of a large-scale search, the area where the children are believed to be being held was surrounded by government troops., several media report. It is not clear how many children there actually are.
President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the attack, closed schools in Katsani state and imposed a higher level of security in all schools.
Buhari has been the incumbent president of Nigeria since 2015. Bild: AP / AP
As the governor of the Katsina region announced on Twitter yesterday, the kidnappers had contacted the government and negotiated the return of the children to their families.
The Boko-Haram are committed to action
To this day it is known who was responsible for the kidnapping. Although kidnappings and extortion by various Nigerian bandits are not uncommon, mass kidnappings are, unsurprisingly, “Boko-Haram”. This is an Islamist terrorist group active in northeastern Nigeria.who advocates a ban on Western education. For years he has been calling for Sharia law to be introduced in Nigeria.
In the early hours of the morning, the Nigerian newspaper “HumAngle” received the 4:28 minute voicemail message from Boko Haram:
This photo comes from a video by the Nigerian terrorist network Boko-Haram and shows its leader Abubakar Shekau in conversation. Image: AP / Militant Video
Abubakar Shekau justified the act as follows:
“What happened in Katsina was done to promote Islam and prevent non-Islamic practices, as Western education is not the kind of education that Allah and His Holy Prophet allow.”
Abubakar Shekau
The name of the Islamist leader is not unknown to the Nigerian population: he was also responsible for the mass kidnapping of Nigerian schoolchildren in 2014.
There was already a massive kidnapping in 2014
On the night of April 14-15, 2014, gunmen drove to the Chibok school grounds, which also served as accommodation for 15-18 year old girls. The attackers forced the school girls onto the trucks and took them to an undisclosed location. A total of 276 girls were abducted, which made headlines around the world.
This screenshot from a video allegedly shows the kidnapped Chibok girls. Bild: AP / Militant Video
In a 57-minute video, Abubakar Shekau confessed to the act a few weeks later. and announced that he would sell the girls in the market. In both 2016 and 2017, after negotiations, Boko-Haram released 21 and 82 girls respectively, with a bitter aftertaste: in return, imprisoned Boko-Haram members were released again.
To date, more than 100 of the so-called “Chibok girls” remain missing.
Agricultural workers targeted by Boko Haram
The last attack by Boko Haram was just two weeks ago. More than 40 agricultural workers in rice fields in northeastern Nigeria were slaughtered. About 22 farm workers were killed in two other attacks in October. Timber workers, ranchers and fishermen are targeted by Boko-Haram because they allegedly worked as informants for the police department.
On November 29, the mass funeral of the dead peasants took place in the state of Borno. Image: keystone
The political situation is tense
The situation in Nigeria has been tense for a long time. In addition to inter-religious conflicts, which have erupted since 1999, bloody demonstrations against police violence were held in October. The trigger was a video on Twitter showing how the SARS police unit shot a Nigerian citizen. Despite the dissolution of the special unit, many key demands from the population remain unanswered, as the New York Times reports.
In Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, people protested for days against police violence. Image: keystone
Discontent with the government grows and anger grows against the army, which cannot protect the population from attacks.
More about this:
THANKS FOR THE ♥
Would you like to support Watson and journalism? Learn more
(You will be redirected to complete the payment)
