LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) – Boko Haram extremist rebels on Tuesday claimed responsibility for kidnapping hundreds of boys from a northern school in Katsina State, Nigeria, last week in one of the deadliest attacks. important of these years, which led to fears of a growing wave of violence in the region.
More than 330 students remain missing at Kankara government science high school after men armed with assault rifles attacked their school on Friday night, though dozens of others managed to escape.
According to Garba Shehu, spokesman for Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, the government and the attackers are negotiating the fate of the boys.
“The kidnappers had made contact and there were already discussions about the safety and return” of the children to their home, Shehu said on Twitter during talks with Katsina Governor Aminu Masari. Neither official said whether the negotiations were with Boko Haram or another group.
Masari said security agencies “deployed for rescue operations have also informed us that they have located their position.”
The Nigerian newspaper said it received an audio message from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in which it claimed the kidnapping, although there has been no independent verification of its authenticity.
The Islamic extremist group has previously carried out a mass abduction of students. The worst occurred in April 2014, when more than 270 schoolgirls were taken from their dormitory at Chibok Government Government High School in northeastern Borno State. About 100 of the girls are still missing.
In February 2014, 59 boys were killed during a Boko Haram attack on Buni Yadi Federal Government College in Yobe State.
In the audio message about Friday’s attack, Shekau said his group kidnapped schoolchildren because Western education is against the principles of Islam.
More than 600 students attend the school. Many were able to escape during a shootout between the attackers and police, according to state police spokesman Gambo Isah.
The students confirmed this account to various news agencies, saying many of them had also been rounded up and forced to walk into a nearby forest, where some were also able to flee.
Several armed groups operate in northern Nigeria, where Katsina State is located. The attackers were originally believed to be bandits, who sometimes work with Boko Haram.
Bandits have been operating in the northwest region for some time and kidnappings have increased in recent years. Amnesty International says more than 1,100 people died in the first six months of 2020 from violence related to bandit attacks.
On Saturday, a joint rescue operation by the Nigerian police, air force and army began after the military took part in clashes with bandits after locating their hideout in the Zango / Paula forest.
If Boko Haram is shown to be behind the kidnapping, it could mean a new wave of religious extremism in Nigeria. For more than ten years, the group has been involved in a bloody campaign to introduce a strict Islamic government, but has been primarily active in northeastern Nigeria, not the northwest, where Katsina State is located. Thousands of people have been killed and more than a million people displaced by violence.
Nnamdi Obasi of the International Crisis Group said a shift of Boko Haram activities to the northwest would have serious security implications, as it could partner with other known armed criminal groups to carry out attacks and charge payments from households and markets.
“They are mini-armies that are capable of conducting operations challenging security forces, and it is worrying,” Obasi told The Associated Press.
Local armed groups have no religious ideology, however, and Obasi said the Boko Haram movement to the northwest would create “a risk of convergence between criminal groups and jihadist groups. The trajectories are very disturbing.”
Because the Northwest is a more homogeneous Islam than the Northeast, there are more potential recruits for radicalism.
Friday’s kidnapping has become a rallying cry for Nigerians fed up with growing violence, with #BringBackOurBoys tending to Twitter as people express their frustrations. A similar #BringBackOurGirls became an international scream for Chibok girls.
“Before, bandits and kidnappers terrorized our state, but little has been done to resolve the situation,” said Mallam Saidu Funtua, a member of a local civil society organization in Katsina state.
He added that “student abduction was the height of everything. It is unacceptable and the government must do more ”to protect students and residents.
The attack was a major setback for education in Katsina, which was beginning to advance enrollment, he said, adding: “Our people will be discouraged from sending their children to school.”
Lawal Muhammed, a Kankara villager, said the attack left most residents frightened and traumatized.
“We had never experienced this kind of thing,” he said. “We want the government to do more to protect our children, especially now that schools will resume after the break of COVID-19.”
The kidnappings also occur when Boko Haram and the Nigerian army can be investigated for war crimes in the rebel insurgency, which has lasted more than a decade.
Last week, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said an investigation has found enough evidence to merit opening a large-scale investigation into allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Boko Haram extremists, as well. as on the charges that Nigerian government forces have also perpetrated abuses.
Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said there is a “reasonable basis to believe” that Boko Haram and related groups related to him committed crimes such as murder, rape, sexual slavery and torture, as well as intentionally running schools and places of worship and use child soldiers. Although the vast majority of the crime in the conflict has been carried out by Boko Haram, prosecutors also found reasons to believe that members of Nigeria’s security forces had committed crimes, he said.
Amnesty International last week released a report saying at least 10,000 civilians have died in Nigerian military custody since 2011 after being detained in connection with the Boko Haram insurgency in northern Nigeria.
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Associated Press writer Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, contributed.