Gunmen abduct 25 girls from a high school in Nigeria and kill one of the staff

ABUJA Nigeria AP Gunmen attacked a high school in northwestern Nigeria before dawn on Monday and abducted schoolgirls police reported One staffer at the school was killed and another was wounded in what was the latest occurrence of school abductions in Nigeria s northern region No group directly claimed responsibility for the abductions from the boarding school in Kebbi state According to police the occurrence took place at a m and the girls were abducted from their dorms The boarding school is in Maga in the state s Danko-Wasagu area police spokesperson Nafi u Abubakar Kotarkoshi explained The assailants were armed with sophisticated weapons and exchanged fire with guards before abducting the girls Kotarkoshi announced A combined unit is now combing suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a coordinated search and rescue operation aimed at recovering the abducted students and arresting the perpetrators the spokesperson added This is the latest school abduction in Nigeria s northern region where armed groups have targeted school children since when the militant Boko Haram group abducted students from Chibok in Borno state Kidnappings have become common in parts of northern Nigeria where dozens of armed groups take advantage of a limited prevention presence to carry out attacks on villages and along major roads Majority casualties are distributed only after the payment of ransoms that sometimes run into the thousands of dollars In March more than schoolchildren were rescued after spending more than two weeks in captivity in the Nigerian state of Kaduna The mass abduction of schoolgirls from Chibok marked the beginning of a new era of fear with nearly of the girls still in captivity in Since the Chibok abductions at least students have been kidnapped as armed groups increasingly find in abductions a lucrative way to fund other crimes and control villages in the nation s mineral-rich but poorly policed region Source