Nigerian security forces are currently searching for nearly 300 schoolchildren who have been kidnapped in the last week.

The first incident took place on Thursday, 7 March, when 280 children were taken from the northwestern town of Kuriga as they were about to begin their day of classes. At the time, some of the children were able to escape being herded into the forest by the armed men, but others weren’t as lucky.

“I am confident that the victims will be rescued. Nothing else is acceptable to me and the waiting family members of these abducted citizens. Justice will be decisively administered,” President Bola Tinubu said in a statement released via Twitter the following day.

Unfortunately, by Saturday, 9 March, a further 15 children were taken in a separate raid on a school in Sokoto. The children are all believed to be between the ages of seven and 18 years old.

As of yet, there has not been a single group that has stepped forward to take responsibility for the abductions.

James Barnett, a researcher on West Africa, suggested that the local gangs are “adapting their strategies and further entrenching themselves in the north-west through extortion” during an interview with an international publication.

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