Schoolgirl escapes as search continues for 24 others abducted in Nigeria

KEBBI, Nigeria (AP) — A schoolgirl who was abducted with 24 others from a dormitory in Nigeria has escaped and is safe, the school’s principal told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The student arrived home late Monday, hours after the kidnapping at the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School, in the northwestern Kebbi state, said principal Musa Rabi Magaji.

One other student, who was not among the 25 confirmed abducted, also escaped in the minutes that followed the attack, the principal told the AP.

“One is part of the 25 abducted (and) the other one returned earlier,” Magaji said. “They are safe and sound.”

Security forces, meanwhile, have intensified efforts to rescue the other girls who were kidnapped when gunmen attacked the high school before dawn on Monday, killing a member of staff.

Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff Lt. Gen. Waidi Shaibu visited the school hours after the attack and directed soldiers to conduct “intelligence-driven operations and relentless day-and-night pursuit of the abductors,” according to an army statement.

“We must find these children. Act decisively and professionally on all intelligence. Success is not optional,” the army chief said.

No group has claimed responsibility for taking the missing girls, but analysts and locals say it could be one of several gangs that often target schools, travelers and remote villagers in kidnappings for ransoms.

Authorities have said they include mostly former herders who have taken up arms against farming communities after clashes between them over increasingly strained resources.

Mass school kidnappings are not uncommon in northern Nigeria, where dozens of armed gangs of mostly nomadic herdsmen and, more recently, jihadis, operate. Schools are often targeted by the gangs to gain more attention, analysts have said.

Analysts and residents blame the insecurity on rampant corruption that limits weapons supplies to security forces, the failure to prosecute attackers, and porous borders that ensure steady weapons supplies to gangs.

“Let’s say people have been kidnapped in the markets — it doesn’t go far, (or) if people have been kidnapped on the road — it doesn’t go far,” said Oluwole Ojewale, a security analyst at the Institute for Security Studies. “What gains traction is when (it is) strategic kidnapping, like school children.”

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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria.