00:00Nigerian gunmen have kidnapped more than 300 students and teachers from a school in north
00:08central Niger state in one of the country's largest mass abductions. Since Islamist militants
00:15kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls from Chibok town more than a decade ago, Nigeria has struggled
00:22with a series of mass kidnappings, mostly carried out by criminal gangs looking for ransom payments.
00:28Often, gunmen attack remote boarding schools where they know a lack of security presence
00:34will make for soft targets. Most victims are released after negotiations. Here are some
00:40of the country's worst mass kidnapping incidents.
00:50In April 2014, Boko Haram jihadists attacked a girls school in Chibok in northeast Borno
00:57state, the center of Nigeria's long-running Islamist insurgency that has killed more than 40,000
01:04people since 2009. Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said he would sell off the girls, mostly
01:12Christians. The attack triggered the hashtag Bring Back Our Girls movement. Some of the
01:17girls escaped early on, others were released or rescued by security forces. Some returned
01:23with children they gave birth to in captivity. Dozens of the Chibok girls are still missing.
01:30The army rescued one of the girls as late as 2024. Militants led another kidnapping of more
01:36than 100 schoolgirls in Dapchi in nearby Yobi state in 2018.
01:44In the first major kidnapping in a year-long string of mass abductions, a criminal gang snatched 344
01:55pupils from a boys' boarding school in Kankara in Katsina state in December 2020. They were
02:03released a few days later. The kidnapping took place as then-President Muhammadu Buhari was
02:08visiting his home state Katsina. Awalan Daudawa, the bandit leader who carried out the raid,
02:14surrendered to authorities in an amnesty deal. He was later killed in fighting.
02:25In February 2021, a kidnap gang raided the Government Girls Science Secondary School in the remote
02:33Janga Bay village in North West Zamfara state, snatching 279 female students aged under 18 years old.
02:41Some of the girls said they were forced to walk for miles to the bandits' camp. After negotiations,
02:47they were released from captivity in forest hideouts.
02:50In July 2021, a criminal gang opened fire and overpowered security guards after storming the
03:04Bethel Baptist High School in North West Khadun Estate. They snatched around 120 pupils as they
03:11slept in their dormitories. Some of them escaped, while others were released in batches over months.
03:17By the time of the Bethel attack, around 1,000 schoolchildren had been kidnapped since the
03:23start of the year in different raids. Many were released after ransom payments. An envoy who
03:29delivered a ransom payment for the release of the Bethel children was himself kidnapped after he
03:34handed over the money.
03:35In one of the country's most high-profile kidnapping attacks, in March 2022, gunmen used explosives to
03:49blow up tracks and then opened fire and raided a train travelling from the capital Abuja to the
03:56north-western city of Kaduna. They snatched dozens of people from the train and killed eight more. The
04:02attack shocked Nigerians who had shifted to taking trains to avoid rural highways where kidnappings
04:09are common. The use of explosives made some experts suspect the kidnap gang worked with Islamist
04:15militants to carry out the attack. The last of the hostages were released months later after
04:20negotiations. Gunmen also attacked a train station in southern Nigeria in 2023, kidnapping about 30
04:28people and wounding others. Security forces later rescued them.
04:39In March 2024, students were just settling into their classes at Kuriga High School in Kaduna.
04:46When dozens of gunmen dressed in military uniforms rode on motorbikes into the school grounds,
04:52more than 100 school children were rounded up and kidnapped. Initially teachers had said 280 were
04:59snatched, though the military later the same month said it had rescued all 137 pupils who had been kidnapped.
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