By Garba Muhammad
KADUNA, Nigeria (Reuters) – A video of some of the students kidnapped from a college in northwest Nigeria was released on Saturday, showing them huddled on the forest floor as armed hijackers hit them with sticks.
Thirty-nine students are missing after gunmen stormed the Federal College of Forest Mechanization in Kaduna State during Thursday night, the fourth school hijacking in northern Nigeria since December.
Video images shared on social media showed about two dozen students begging for help in English and Hausa. One of them says that the captors want a rescue of 500 million naira (US $ 1.31 million).
“If someone comes to rescue them without the money, they will kill us,” says a student in the video, while an armed man is behind him.
College dean Bello Mohammed Usman and the mother of a student kidnapped on Saturday identified those shown in the video as some of the kidnapped students, including a pregnant woman. Usman declined to comment on the ransom request.
Abubakar Sadiq, executive secretary of the Kaduna State Emergency Management Agency, said he was unaware of the video and had no authority to comment on the ransom request.
Earlier on Saturday, Kaduna State Security Commissioner Samuel Aruwan said nine more students were missing than previously thought – 23 women and 16 men.
“The Kaduna state government is maintaining close communication with the college administration, as efforts by security agencies are continuing to track missing students,” said Aruwan.
The armed gang stormed the school, located on the outskirts of the city of Kaduna, near a military academy, around 11:30 pm (10:30 pm GMT) on Thursday. Aruwan said another 180 students and staff who were staying at the school were rescued on Friday.
Gang attacks by armed men, known as bandits, have intensified for several years, and military and police attempts to fight gangs have met with little success. Many fear that state officials will make matters worse by allowing kidnappers to go unpunished, paying them or providing incentives.
In a statement on Saturday, President Muhammadu Buhari asked that the missing students be found and returned safely to their families.
Gloria Paul said she recognized her 20-year-old daughter, Joy Kurmi Paul, in the video, wearing a pink scarf on her head. Outside school on Saturday, the mother begged for help.
“Please, the government must help us to release them without hurting them,” she said as tears rolled down her face.
(Reporting by Garba Muhammad, additional reporting by Maiduguri and Felix Onuah in Abuja. Written by Libby George, edited by Alexandra Hudson, Rosalind Russell and Clelia Oziel)