Their lives were already very difficult, in displaced people’s camps, after they had left their homes in the north-eastern region of Nigeria. On a recent day, they risked a foray into the countryside to collect firewood — and about 200 of them, some officials said, were kidnapped.
Days later, dozens of children – if not more – were reported abducted on Thursday from a primary school about 500 miles away in central Nigeria.
It was unclear who was responsible and security services have not made a statement. The first incident occurred in the region terrorized by Boko Haram, the brutal Islamist group with a history of mass kidnappings. Residents told local media that robbers 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 governments and the Nigerian armed forces to bring peace and stability to a divided land.
Parts of Nigeria, a West African nation that is the continent’s most populous, are plagued by crime and violence, and Boko Haram’s 15-year insurgency in the north continues. Boko Haram’s abduction 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 to Amnesty International.
More than 3,600 people were reported abducted in Nigeria last year – the highest number in five years, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Events Data Project, although the true number is likely much higher as many incidents go unreported.
The details of the two most recent mass abductions remain extremely unclear.
The first occurred in Borno state, which is at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency. In the northeast, more than two million people have left their homes and livelihoods behind to seek refuge in camps in garrison towns, where they struggle to eke out a meager living. The cities are defended by the Nigerian army and surrounded by trenches, beyond which jihadist groups operate.
The people abducted in Borno — many of them women and children — came out of one such town, Ngala, near the border with Cameroon, in search of firewood to sell, according to Mohamed Malick Fall, the UN humanitarian coordinator. in Nigeria. He said they were seized by members of an armed group, who freed some elderly women and some children under 10 years old.
“The exact number of people abducted remains unknown, but it is estimated at over 200 people,” he said in a statement.
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 agencies to release the abductees.
But Babagana Zulum, the governor of Borno state, warned that the numbers could be inflated, saying some of those reported to have been abducted could have left willingly, even to join the militants.
“We are yet to ascertain the correct numbers of abducted victims,” he said. “Some may have decided to go voluntarily.
The incident “is about recruitment” for militant groups, the governor said. “They’ve lost their members and their numbers are depleted and now they’re looking for new recruits and women.”
The abduction took place a week ago, but the news did not become widespread for several days.
“Those who venture beyond the protective trenches that surround these cities to forage or cultivate do so at great risk,” Mr. Fall said, “with murder, kidnapping, forced recruitment and sexual and rampant gender violence”. He added that the authorities needed to do more to help displaced people earn a living so they did not risk their lives fetching firewood.
Governor Zulum said last month that the government could not do more for the displaced communities facing economic hardship and that the money spent on food and other items for them was already “huge”.
Mr Zulum has pursued what analysts have called an “aggressive programme” of closing camps and relocating displaced people, despite the lack of security in the areas to which they are being 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 marched the children into a nearby forest. The school had recently been relocated from the countryside to the city in order to improve security.
There was no official statement from the authorities as of Thursday afternoon, although a senator, Shehu Sani, said as many as 232 students could have been abducted, adding a post on X that he was “hopeful that their liberty would be secured.”
Nigeria, a diverse nation of more than 200 million people, faces many complex security challenges, including conflicts between herdsmen and farmers, separatist movements, piracy and violence related to oil theft, and jihadist insurgencies, including Boko Haram. Kidnapping is a feature of all of them, according to Nigerian analytics firm SBM Intelligence, and the main motive is ransom payments.
Some of these ransoms are paid in cash. Others are paid in food or medicine. Many of the Chibok girls were released in exchange for reported ransoms running into the millions of dollars.
Ismail Alpha contributed reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria.
