LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen abducted three teachers from a primary school in Nigeria’s northwest on Monday, four days after several dozen other students from another school in Kaduna state were abducted.
The latest attack was carried out Monday morning at the Rema Primary School, according to Samuel Aruwan, the Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs.
The pupils who just arrived in the school “took to their heels in the course of the commotion and none of them was abducted, Aruwan said.
It was the second attempt to abduct school children in the state since Thursday when 39 students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization were abducted.
The attack on the school came hours after the Nigerian media circulated a video of some of the students abducted from the college.
The video, which showed the students pleading for help to secure their freedom, showed disturbing scenes of gunmen in military camouflage beating them with whips.
Although authorities haven’t commented on the video, some parents and classmates identified those in the video as the students earlier kidnapped in interviews with local media.
The first major incident of mass abductions of school children in Nigeria happened in 2014, when members of the jihadi group Boko Haram abducted 276 girls in Chibok. More than 100 of those girls are still missing.
Many other groups have carried out mass abductions of school children either for political reasons or for ransom. Although authorities deny paying ransom to armed groups, many Nigerians believe these groups have become better armed and better organized with money paid them to free captive students.
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