Daily Mail
Security personnel opened fire on a crowd at a reunion of nearly 300 abducted schoolgirls and their relatives in Nigeria on Wednesday.
At least three people were reportedly shot as the event in the northwestern town of Jangebe descended into chaos, according to local media reports. It is not clear whether anyone was killed.
The forces opened fire after stones were thrown at government officials, apparently in frustration at the drawn-out procedure, said the reports.
Anxious and angry parents who were reunited with the girls after six days of waiting grabbed their daughters and left after shots rang out.
Many were worried about traveling on the area’s dangerous roads at night.
‘It is infuriating for [officials] to say they had to finish their speeches before handing over our children to us. This is outrageous,’ one mother told AFP news agency as she led her daughter away.
‘They know the roads are insecure but they didn’t care. If we leave late and are kidnapped with our daughters again, the girls’ rescue will make no sense.’
The girls, aged 10 and upwards, were abducted on Friday from their dormitories at the Government Secondary School in Jangebe, Zamfara state, in the latest mass kidnapping to rock Nigeria.
At the time of the attack, one resident told AP news agency that gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from responding to the mass abduction at the school.
Zamfara state governor Bello Matawalle said that 279 girls had been freed on Tuesday after negotiations.
The girls were kept in the government’s custody in Gusau, the state capital, receiving medical care before the official handover ceremony in the school’s hall.
Local residents told AFP news agency on Thursday that a 24-hour curfew had been imposed in the town following the violence.
‘After the unrest yesterday a dust-to-dawn curfew was imposed and everybody was ordered to stay indoors,’ said Abubakar Zaki, a resident and father of two of the kidnapped girls.
‘But this morning after people had come out, the DPO (Divisional Police Officer) went round, informing people the curfew has been extended to round-the-clock and asked everyone to return home,’ he said.
Abubakar said the police also ordered the closure of the local market and all shops in the village to prevent fresh violence.
‘We are all inside our homes,’ he added.
Muhammad Mustapha, another resident, confirmed the curfew.
‘There is a 24-hour curfew in Jangebe as a result of the violence by mobs yesterday,’ he told AFP.
‘The market and shops are closed and everyone is indoors,’ he said, adding that the situation was now calm.
The BBC reported that authorities had claimed the closure of the market was due to evidence it had they had found that ‘market activities’ were helping to fund criminals in the area.
The government blames the girls’ abduction on ‘bandits’ who kidnap people for money and as leverage to negotiate the release of their members from jail.
While school kidnappings were first carried out by jihadist groups Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, the tactic has now been adopted by other militants in the northwest whose agenda is unclear.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.
Teachers have been forced to flee to other states for protection, and many children have had to abandon their education amid frequent violent attacks in communities, according to Amnesty International.
Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings in recent years, most notably the mass abduction in April 2014 of 276 girls from a secondary school in Chibok by Boko Haram. More than a hundred of the girls are still missing.
The latest kidnapping on Friday came less than two weeks after gunmen abducted 42 people, including 27 students, from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger State.
The students, teachers and family members are still being held.
In December, 344 students were abducted from the Government Science Secondary School Kankara in Katsina, the home state of President Muhammadu Buhari, while he was visiting the region.
They were eventually released after negotiations with government officials.
Nigeria’s government has been sharply criticised for its inability to stop the kidnappings.
President Muhammadu Buhari replaced his long-standing military chiefs earlier this month amid the worsening violence.
Following the girls’ release on Tuesday, Buhari called for greater vigilance to prevent bandits from carrying out such attacks.
He urged police and military to pursue the kidnappers, and warned that policies of making payments to bandits will backfire.
‘Ransom payments will continue to prosper kidnapping,’ he said.
UN experts on Wednesday called for urgent rehabilitation of the traumatised students.
‘Social inclusion of these children requires the provision of long-term measures aimed at restoring their physical and psychological well-being,’ the UN Human Rights Special Procedures experts said in a statement.
‘Sensitising families and communities to the importance of reintegration is imperative for them to be able to build renewed social relations… and to overcome stigma.’
The experts condemned the Nigerian government for the ‘lack of an effective investigation into the abduction of 344 students from a boys’ boarding school in Kankara, Katsina State, in December 2020 and released a few days later.’
This Story First Appeared At The Daily Mail
