Theirs were already lives of great hardship, in displaced people’s camps, having fled their homes in Nigeria’s besieged northeast. One recent day, they risked venturing into the countryside to collect firewood and about 200 of them, some officials said, were kidnapped.
Just a few days later, on Thursday it was reported that dozens of children, if not more, were kidnapped from a primary school about 500 miles away in central Nigeria.
It is not clear who was responsible and the security services have not commented. The first incident took place in the region terrorized by Boko Haram, the brutal Islamist group with a history of mass kidnappings. Residents told local media that bandits had carried out the second.
But both had vital elements in common: they involved some of the most vulnerable people in society and demonstrated the failure of successive Nigerian governments and armed forces to bring peace and stability to a divided land.
Parts of Nigeria, a West African nation that is the most populous on the continent, are plagued by crime and violence, and the 15-year-old Boko Haram insurgency in the north continues. Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls from their dormitory in the town of Chibok 10 years ago, which sparked international outrage, remains an open wound; 98 of the victims are still missing. according International Amnesty.
More than 3,600 people were kidnapped in Nigeria last year, the highest number in five years, according to the Armed Conflict Events and Location Data Projectalthough the true figure is likely much higher as many episodes go unreported.
The details of the two most recent mass kidnappings remain extremely unclear.
The first occurred in Borno state, which has been at the center of the Boko Haram insurgency. Across the northeast, more than two million people have abandoned their homes and livelihoods to seek refuge in camps in garrison towns, where they struggle to make ends meet. The cities are defended by the Nigerian army and surrounded by trenches, beyond which jihadist groups operate.
The people kidnapped in Borno — many of them women and children — ventured out of one of those towns, Ngala, near the border with Cameroon, in search of firewood to sell, according to Mohamed Malick Fall, a United Nations humanitarian coordinator. in Nigeria. He said they were seized by members of an armed group, who freed some older women and some children under 10 years old.
“The exact number of people kidnapped is still unknown, but it is estimated at more than 200,” he said. in a sentence.
The member of the House of Representatives representing Ngala, Zainab Gimba, put the number at 300, according to Nigerian media reports, and she and other lawmakers called on security services to release those kidnapped.
But Babagana Zulum, governor of Borno state, warned that the figures could be inflated, saying some of those kidnapped could have gone voluntarily, even to join the militants.
“We have yet to determine the correct number of kidnapped victims,” he said. “Some may have decided to go voluntarily.
The incident “is about recruitment” for militant groups, the governor said. “They lost their members and their numbers have reduced and now they are looking for new recruits and women.”
The kidnapping took place a week ago, but the news did not spread until several days later.
“Those who venture beyond the protective trenches surrounding these cities to forage or grow crops do so at great risk,” Fall said, “with murder, kidnapping, forced recruitment, and rampant sexual and gender-based violence.” He added that authorities needed to do more to help displaced people earn a living so they did not have to risk their lives carrying firewood.
Governor Zulum said last month that the government could not do more for displaced communities facing economic hardship and that money spent on food and other items for them was already “enormous”.
Zulum has pursued what analysts have called a “aggressive program” to close camps and relocate displaced people, despite the lack of security in the areas to which they are sent back.
Thursday’s kidnapping took place in Kuriga, a small town in Kaduna state. Residents told local media that the students had just finished their morning assembly when armed men appeared and took the children to a nearby forest. The school had recently moved from the countryside to the city to improve security.
As of Thursday afternoon there was no official statement from the authorities, although a senator, Shehu Sani, said that up to 232 students may have been kidnapped, adding that a post on X that he felt “optimistic that his freedom will be guaranteed.”
Nigeria, a diverse nation of more than 200 million people, faces many complex security challenges, including conflicts between herders and farmers, separatist movements, piracy and violence associated with oil theft, as well as jihadist insurgencies, including that of Boko Haram. . Kidnapping is a characteristic of all of them, according to Nigerian analysis firm SBM Intelligenceand the main motivation is ransom payments.
Some of these ransoms are paid in cash. Others are paid in food or medicine. Many of the Chibok girls were freed in exchange for ransoms reportedly running into millions of dollars.
alpha ismail contributed reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria.
