After the kidnapping of several students in the city of Kagara in Nigeria, the authorities have given the number of people abducted at 44. According to unofficial information from government circles, 29 students were kidnapped together with three teachers and twelve family members. A student was killed in the attack on Wednesday night, it said. Previously there had been talk of hundreds of abductees. President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a rescue operation.
The attack took place in the central state of Niger. Uniformed attackers with assault rifles broke into the building of the science college of the state school in the city of Kagara. The abducted students are adolescents in their teenage years. At the time of the attack, there were at least 650 students in the building. An employee of the school and some students apparently managed to escape. The remaining abductees were brought to a nearby forest, official sources said.
In Nigeria there have been more abductions in the past. In April 2014, for example, around 270 girls were kidnapped by the Islamist group Boko Haram from their school in Chibok, Borno state. In the years that followed, there were many similar cases. In December last year, 300 school children were kidnapped in the north-west of the country by Islamists.
Transverse Waves 