JANGEBE, Nigeria: Suwaida Sani was one of the lucky few.
When dozens of heavily armed gunmen burst through the doors of their boarding school scattering bullets in the air in the early hours of Friday morning, they demanded that all students file in the courtyard or be shot.
Suwaida ran in the other direction, crouched under a mosquito net and trembling as the beams of the flashlight traced the wall above her head. When the 13-year-old came out of hiding the next morning, the gunmen had abducted more than 300 schoolmates between the ages of 11 and 17 and marched them into a nearby forest. It was the largest schoolgirl kidnapping in the history of a country where these kidnappings are increasingly familiar.
“They were looking for someone to hide, but thank God they didn’t see me,” said Suwaida, sitting safely among her parents in the living room of her one-story home. “They’ve taken so many of my friends that I can’t even count the number,” she said through tears. “May God save them.”
The kidnapping of the government high school for girls in the small town of Jangebe is the second in just over a week in northwestern Nigeria, where increased armed militancy has led to a deterioration in security and where rescue kidnapping has become an industry benefit.