More than 300 schoolboys abducted by gunmen suspected to be terrorists remain missing days after they were abducted from their secondary school in Kankara, Katsina state, Nigeria.
Gunmen on motorcycles stormed the all-boys Government Science School late on Friday and engaged security forces in a gun battle before hundreds of the students were abducted by the group.
Distraught parents begged the government to get their kids back from their abductors but the Nigerian government.
A parent, Abubakar Lawal said two of his boys were among those abducted.
“From yesterday I was here, praying that the almighty Allah should rescue our people,” he said outside the dusty school grounds.
The Nigerian government said it has located the attackers yet the boys remain missing. It promised to rescue the boys without collateral damage.
The hashtag BringBackOurBoys trended on social media in Nigeria on Sunday as public outrage grew about an attack that initially saw 600 boys missing.
President Muhammadu Buhari had overwhelming votes in the north to defeat the then incumbent Goodluck Jonathan largely due to ravaging insecurity under the Jonathan’s administration. Parents of the missing boys say the situation is worse at the moment under Buhari.
“We don’t see the value of the government. I have a younger brother and a child taken by the kidnappers. I’m from Danja, Katsina state and I’ve been here in the school since dawn and yet there’s no update,” Ismail, one of the affected parents, said.
In 2018, Boko Haram kidnapped more than 100 girls in the northeastern Nigerian town of Dapchi. And six years ago, in 2014, the same group abducted more than 270 girls in the town of Chibok.
Last month, 43 farmers were killed by Boko Haram in Zarbamari town in Borno state.
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