More than one week after gunmen kidnapped dozens of schoolchildren from St. Mary’s Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools, Papiri, in Niger State, 265 teachers and children are still unaccounted for.
The Catholic Bishop of Kontagora, Bulus Yohanna, stated this on Friday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
Bishop Yohanna said the figures comprise 12 teachers and 253 schoolchildren, adding that the diocese has forwarded the names of the hostages to the Niger State Governor, Umar Bago.
“We had 303 pupils and students missing and 12 teachers also not seen. We added that number to make it 315 that cannot be accounted for after taking the headcount,” the cleric said.
“Those that escaped went back home to their villages. When we started having calls of those that reunited with their parents, we were able to get 50 out of the 315, including staff and teachers who could not be accounted for, we deducted that number so we now have 265 as of now, that is the number that is missing.”
Yohanna, who also chairs the Niger State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), asked the Federal Government to deploy security operatives to secure schools in the North-Central state.
The Catholic bishop said the abduction has become a source of worry for the parents of the kidnapped schoolgirls.
According to him, two parents have died due to shock from the incident.
The cleric appealed to the federal and state government to come to the school’s aid by securing the students and teachers still held in captivity by the gunmen.
The gunmen seized more than 300 children from the Catholic-owned institution, in a resurgence of the mass kidnappings that have long harrowed Nigeria.
The same week, 25 schoolgirls were taken from another school, and 38 worshippers were seized from a church in Kebbi and Kwara States, forcing President Bola Tinubu to order security as a national emergency.
At least 50 taken from the Catholic school, St Mary’s, managed to escape, but many more children and teachers are still being held. Some of the children abducted are nursery-school age.
President Bola Tinubu has ordered a manhunt for the perpetrators, vowing to ensure the rescue of the missing students and other persons still in captivity across the country.
Opposition figures have accused the Nigerian government of failure to secure citizens with some even calling for Tinubu’s resignation in the wake of the deadly attacks across Africa’s most populous nation.
Nigeria has a history of mass kidnappings, mostly carried out by criminal gangs looking for ransom payments and targeting vulnerable populations in poorly policed rural areas.
Many of the captives get freed or rescued within weeks or months, while some escape on their own.
The first high-profile mass kidnapping was that of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014, when Boko Haram terrorists forced 276 girls from their dormitories in the country’s northeast.
More than a decade later, about 90 of those girls are still missing. Nigeria suffers from a persistent security crisis fuelled by violence from “bandit” gangs that raid villages, kill people and kidnap for ransom.
US President Donald Trump earlier this month threatened military action over what he described as the targeted killing of Christians, a claim the Federal Government rejects.
