Advertising
Supported by
A reported mass kidnapping in an area terrorized by Boko Haram, and then a few days later at an elementary school, highlighted the government’s inability to combat crime and armed insurgency.
By Ruth Maclean
Report from Dakar, Senegal
Their lives were already very difficult, in camps for displaced people, after fleeing their homes in besieged northeastern Nigeria. One day recently, they risked raiding the countryside to collect firewood, and about 200 of them, according to some officials, were kidnapped.
Days later, dozens or more young people were reportedly abducted from a first school about 800 kilometers away in central Nigeria on Thursday.
The identity of the culprits is unclear and security has not issued any statement. The first incident took place in the domain terrorized by Boko Haram, the brutal Islamist organization with a history of mass kidnappings. Residents told local media that the bandits carried out the operation for the time being.
But the two had key elements in common: they affected some of the most vulnerable people in society and demonstrated the failure of Nigeria’s successive governments and armed forces to bring peace and stability to a torn country.
Parts of Nigeria, the continent’s most populous West African country, are plagued by crime and violence, and the 15-year-old Boko Haram insurgency in the north continues. Boko Haram’s abduction of 276 schoolchildren from their dormitory in the town of Chibok a decade ago, which sparked foreign outrage, remains an open wound; According to Amnesty International, 98 of those affected are still missing.
More than 3,600 people are believed to have been abducted in Nigeria last year – the highest number in five years, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project; The actual figure is likely to be much higher, as many episodes go unreported.
Thank you for your patience as we determine access. If you’re in Reader mode, log out and log in to your Times account or subscribe to the full Times.
Thank you for your patience as we determine access.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Want all the Times? Subscribe.
Advertising