Kidnappers in Nigeria still hold 300 abducted children

Armed attackers on Saturday released 27 students abducted last week from a school in the northern state of Niger, while security forces are still searching for more than 300 female students abducted in a neighboring state.

Schools in northern Nigeria have become targets of mass kidnappings for ransom. Attackers storm in groups, many on motorcycles and armed with rifles. Twenty-seven students, three school staff members, and 12 family members were abducted by an armed gang that stormed the Government Science Secondary School in Kagara district, Niger State. A boy was killed in the attack.

A Reuters witness saw the boys after their release walking through a dusty village with armed security, some stumbling and asking for water. A government official said they were between 15 and 18 years old. "The abducted students and staff of the Government School in Kagara and their relatives have been released and taken over by the Niger State government," Governor Abubakar Sani Bello tweeted.

The students were released just a day after an attack on a school in Zamfara State, where armed men abducted 317 girls.

Recent attacks have raised concerns about the rise in violence by armed gangs and Islamist insurgents. The jihadist group Boko Haram and an Islamic State affiliate carry out abductions in Nigeria's restive northeast.

The unrest has become a political problem for President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general and former military commander who has faced increasing criticism in recent months over attacks by armed groups locally known as "bandits."

Buhari replaced his long-serving military commanders this month due to the deteriorating violence in Nigeria. In December, armed attackers stormed a school in the northwestern state of Katsina and abducted nearly 350 boys, who were later rescued by security forces.

Violence and insecurity further complicate the difficult economic situation facing citizens in Africa's most populous country and largest oil exporter, which is struggling with falling revenues due to the drop in crude oil prices and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2014, Boko Haram abducted more than 270 schoolgirls in the town of Chibok in the largest school abduction. Around 100 of them are still missing.