Nigeria horrified by kidnapped schoolchildren, while parents wait anxiously

“How could this have happened?” Said Suwaiba Lawan, whose 15-year-old son is among the missing. “He loved it here and always helps with household chores.” Another mother, Jamila Salisu, said she had barely slept or eaten since her own son, of the same class, had disappeared: “The government has to negotiate,” she said through tears. “Give the terrorists whatever they want so I can see my son again.”

Six years after the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in the city of Chibok ignited the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign, the cries of schoolchildren’s parents are once again echoing Africa’s most populous nation. Nigerian senators, celebrities and opposition leaders have reacted with horror to the announcement of Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, the man responsible for the kidnapping of Chibok, who also carried out the operation. Thousands spread social media with a new hashtag: #BringBackOurBoys.

“This is becoming another huge moment in the history of Nigeria’s insurgency,” said Jacob Zenn, a Boko Haram specialist at the Jamestown Foundation think tank in Washington. “After Chibok, Shekau not only knows how to carry out mass abduction operations, but also how to hide the captives and then get the media’s attention and take advantage of it to negotiate.”

Another mass school abduction is reported as the Nigerian government continues to insist that the country’s uprisings are “technically defeated.” But the reality is that Africa’s largest ground force – a strong anti-terrorist ally of the United States – is struggling to contain a ten-year-old jihadist rebellion that has turned into a complex multidimensional conflict of overlapping militant groups.

Boko Haram has expanded its influence from northeast to northwest, establishing alliances with heavily armed criminal networks. The West African separatist province of Islamic State, or ISWAP, has been rejuvenated by Islamic State aid and the return of hardened fighters to the battle of Libya, Syria and Iraq.

Nigeria-born jihadist factions now control hundreds of square kilometers of territory across four countries around the Lake Chad basin, a crossroads of Africa, where the U.S., British and French military have bases or offer training. special forces. In northern Nigeria, militants have been advancing, overcoming dozens of smaller military bases and looting weapons. According to the U.S. Foreign Relations Council, the period since July 2018 has been more deadly for Nigeria’s security service personnel than at any other time in the decadent conflict.

“We are no longer fighting to win … the strategy is containment and damage limitation,” said a senior Nigerian security official.

As of Wednesday evening, there had been no official updates on the number of missing boys – 333 of the school’s 800 students were still listed by the Katsina state governor – or on the government’s efforts to save them.

The Nigerian Ministry of Defense has said a search and rescue operation was underway and security officials said soldiers and intelligence officers were combing the area, aided by U.S. surveillance aircraft. The governments of the United Kingdom and France have also offered air support, officials said.

But eyes on the sky can only offer limited help over the vast Rugu forest, which stretches for three states and hundreds of miles. December is the end of the rainy season, when the canopy is denser. Security officials say they intercepted communication between the kidnappers that the boys had been separated into three groups on Monday and could have been separated into smaller groups since then. The region is dotted with villages and small settlements, making it difficult to separate militants and hostages from nomadic ranchers or shepherds.

The hostage hunt is reminiscent of the U.S.-led air search of more than 200 school hostages captured in 2014, when U.S. intelligence officials based in Ramstein, Germany, dumped thousands of hours of material sent from of Global Hawk drones flying over the Sambisa forest in northeastern Nigeria. For three years, American drones roamed a vast forest in the wooded region, but only spotted a large group of young women believed to be Chibok hostages as they sat under a tree, an image that went know as “the tree of life.” U.S. and British officials concluded it would be too dangerous to attack because Boko Haram could use the girls as human shields.

President Muhammadu Buhari said on Saturday that the location of the boys had been identified and that the army was exchanging fire with the captors, but a senior intelligence official said the air force had complained that it had never received these coordinates.

“There is deep frustration in the military,” said Chidi Nwaonu, a former soldier who now runs a UK-based security consulting firm, Vox Peccavi. “They are overworked and disabled and have lost a lot of legitimacy … It’s a recipe for disaster.”

The kidnapping of Kankara is just the latest large-scale attack on Nigeria in recent weeks. In late November, Boko Haram kidnapped and then killed about 70 farmers in the village of Zamabari in Borno state. Last week, the group killed 28 people and burned 800 homes in a border town in southern Niger.

The school kidnapping was especially embarrassing for Mr. Buhari, a native of Katsina who was in his local village of Daura, less than 150 miles away, at the time of the attack. A former general who briefly ruled Nigeria in the 1980s as a military dictator, returned to power by winning the 2015 elections with the promise of restoring security in the north after the kidnapping of Chibok.

The #BringBackOurGirls campaign said in a statement that it received news of Kankara’s abduction “with predictable fear” due to the “seemingly endless nightmare of the school kidnapping chain.” The group called on Mr Buhari to immediately fire his military leaders and review the entire security architecture of the country.

In Kankara, residents who voted overwhelmingly to re-elect Mr Buhari for a second term in 2019 are now boiling with rage and pain. The central mosque has extended its hours so that locals can extend more prayers for the safe return of children. When local officials arrived on Tuesday to address the parents, police fired tear gas to repel the crowds.

Inside the school campus, some of the families and officials said they were concerned that if the government did not get the boys back quickly, Boko Haram could try to indoctrinate and recruit them.

Garba Hassan, one of the school guards who hid when the gunmen stormed the school, said most of the boys in prison were young (those aged 15 and 16) because their dorms were more near the entrance.

Although the world has focused on the abductions of high-profile Boko Haram women and girls, the Islamist group has robbed a much larger number of boys – more than 10,000 – according to advocacy groups and defectors.

Boko Haram has been recruiting children since the early days of its insurgency, first using them as spies and messengers before heading for front-line mobilization, according to the Nigerian Army and Human Rights Watch.

Jamila Sani, whose 16-year-old son is among the missing, said the government had promised to ensure that a kidnapping like Chibok would never happen again. “They pledged to provide security to schools when they were elected,” he said, grabbing his daughter’s shoulder. “They have to keep their promise.”

Write to Joe Parkinson to [email protected]