“I am Abubakar Shekau and our brothers are driving the kidnapping in Katsina,” stated the male in the recording. Shekau is the chief of one of Boko Haram’s factions.
CNN was not able to independently confirm the authenticity of the message.
The message claimed that Boko Haram had specific the faculty simply because of the group’s extended-held aim to end “western” education and learning in northern Nigeria, but a govt official advised CNN on Monday that the kidnappers experienced been in touch with a teacher of the faculty, boosting the prospect of a ransom negotiation.
There have been varying estimates of the number of little ones kidnapped from the school. Governing administration officers reported it was hard to correctly monitor the numbers, as some youngsters ran away through the assault and many others had escaped and manufactured their way back again to villages and to the college via the weekend.
“Educational facilities should really be a position of basic safety and finding out but for these boys and their families, it has turned into a nightmare,” reported Shannon Ward, Preserve the Children’s performing nation director in Nigeria, in a assertion on Monday. “This could have a deep effects on little ones — not only the boys who have been taken, but also the kinds who experienced to flee and cover from gun violence or these who noticed what transpired.”
The kidnapping is outside Boko Haram’s standard location of action. Their functions have generally targeted in the northeast of the nation, while protection analysts believe that their access has shifted, just after a stability crackdown in that region.
There have been various kidnappings for ransom in Katsina State in latest many years, but not on this scale.
A number of witnesses informed CNN that those people who qualified the faculty had been Fulani gunmen, an ethnic team that has been involved in kidnappings and felony functions in the place.
Shekau’s faction of Boko Haram was at the rear of the 2014 kidnapping of almost 300 schoolgirls in Chibok. Their captivity lasted a long time and numerous of the kids were by no means returned right after a negotiated release.
In 2018, a breakaway faction of Boko Haram recognized as ISWAP kidnapped much more than 100 women in Dapchi. All but a person was unveiled weeks later on, soon after negotiations.
While these are the most substantial-profile examples, Boko Haram has kidnapped very well in excessive of 1,000 little ones because 2013, according to UNICEF.
The United Nations strongly condemned the abductions on Sunday, and named for the “quick and unconditional release” of the children.
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