A group of unknown gunmen invades LEA primary school and Government Secondary School in Kaduna State, abducting 280 students and teachers on Thursday, 7th March 2024.
The gunmen invaded the Kuriga area of Chikun LGA in Kaduna State yesterday, firing shots at their victims before kidnapping the students and staff from both schools.
According to a teacher at Government Secondary School, the incident occurred at around 8 am immediately after the morning assembly. A student known as Ahmed died in the process after he sustained a bullet injury.
The teacher narrated his ordeal saying,
"I resumed school today (Thursday) at exactly 7:47 am. I entered the acting principal’s office and signed. All of a sudden, the acting principal asked me to look at my back and when I turned, we discovered that bandits had surrounded the school premises.
We became confused. We didn’t know where to go. Then, the bandits asked us to enter the bush, so we obeyed them because there were many and the pupils who were about 700 were following us. So, when we entered the bush, I was lucky to escape alongside many other people.
So, I returned to the village and reported what happened to the community. So, immediately our vigilante and personnel of KADVS (Kaduna State Vigilante Service) followed the bandits, but the vigilante did not succeed. The bandits killed one of the vigilantes. We just buried him a short while ago.
It was when we came back from that pursuit that we briefed the village head and we started making efforts to know the number of pupils and teachers taken away by the bandits.
“At GSS Kuriga, 187 students are presently missing. In the primary school, 125 pupils were initially missing, but, 25 of them escaped and retired home."