Nigeria gunmen raid Kagara school and abduct boys

Gunmen have killed a faculty pupil and kidnapped 27 different kids in a night-time raid on their boarding faculty in north-central Nigeria, state governor Abubakar Sani Bello has mentioned.

Three members of employees and 12 of their relations had been additionally kidnapped, he added.

About 600 boys had been asleep of their dormitories when the college in Kagara city in Niger state was raided, the principal Danasabe Ubaidu informed the BBC.

The safety forces have been deployed to assist with rescue operations.

The motive for the assault is unclear, however prison gangs typically perform kidnappings for ransom in elements of Nigeria, says the BBC's Ishaq Khalid within the capital Abuja.

On Monday about 20 individuals who had been coming back from a marriage ceremony had been kidnapped after an assault on their bus in Niger state. Their destiny is unclear.

In December greater than 300 schoolboys had been seized within the city of Kankara within the north-western state of Katsina. They had been later launched following negotiations with the gunmen.

Within the newest assault, the gunmen wore army uniforms and stormed the state-run boarding faculty for boys in enormous numbers, earlier than taking college students into a close-by forest, the AFP information company quoted an unnamed safety supply and an official as saying.

Troops with aerial assist had been attempting to trace down the attackers, AFP quoted the safety supply as saying.

Mr Ubaidu informed the BBC that among the kids had managed to flee into close by bushes and had been now returning.

Describing the assault as "cowardly", Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari mentioned he had deployed a group of safety chiefs to coordinate rescue operations.

Mr Buhari has been below intense stress to deal with insecurity, together with an insurgency by militant Islamists within the north-east, and assaults on oil services within the south by teams demanding a better share of oil income for the area.