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Nigeria's Zamfara attack: Hundreds of schoolgirls feared kidnapped | |
(32 minutes later) | |
This is the latest mass abduction targeting schools in recent weeks | This is the latest mass abduction targeting schools in recent weeks |
Hundreds of schoolgirls are feared to have been kidnapped in the north-western state of Zamfara. | |
A teacher told the BBC that at least 300 students were unaccounted for after the Friday morning attack by gunmen. | |
A spokesman for the state's governor has confirmed the attack but did not give details. | A spokesman for the state's governor has confirmed the attack but did not give details. |
This is the latest mass abduction targeting schools in recent weeks. Armed gangs often seize schoolchildren for ransom. | |
At least 42 people, including 27 students, who were kidnapped last week in the central state of Niger are yet to be released. | |
In December, more than 300 boys were kidnapped by gunmen and later released after negotiations. | |
Africa Live: More on this and other stories | |
Was school kidnap carried out by Boko Haram? | |
The town that lost its girls | |
Friday's attack happened at 01:00 local time (midnight GMT) when a group of gunmen arrived at the Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe with pick-up vehicles and motorcycles, a teacher told news site Punch. | |
A teacher said that some of the gunmen were dressed as government security forces, the report said, adding that they forced the schoolgirls in the vehicles. | |
The BBC's Ishaq Khalid in the capital, Abuja, says that worried parents have gathered outside the school and some have gone out into the bush to look for their daughters. | |
A teacher told the BBC that of 421 students in the school at the time, only 55 had been unaccounted for, meaning more than 300 were believed to have been kidnapped. | |
Abdulhadi Abubaka describes how he managed to avoid the mass kidnapping in Nigeria's Katsina school in December last year |