Forty-two students remain unaccounted for following an assault on a Nigerian school by suspected militant fighters, according to a regional senator who spoke out Saturday.
The attack took place Friday at Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba Local Government Area while students were attending classes, according to local residents who witnessed armed individuals taking an undetermined number of pupils.
Ali Ndume, who represents the Borno South district where the educational facility is situated, released a statement explaining that school officials told him 32 students were taken from the campus while an additional 10 were captured from nearby residences.
Military and police authorities have not yet provided responses to requests for information about the incident.
The region of Borno, which spans an area comparable to Ireland and shares borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger, continues to serve as the central battleground for a militant insurgency led by the Boko Haram group that has persisted for more than a decade and a half.
While no organization has taken credit for Friday’s assault, Boko Haram has previously conducted comparable student kidnappings.
The Borno South senatorial district was the location where Boko Haram seized more than 270 female students in Chibok during 2014, sparking international condemnation. No other school abductions had occurred in the state since that time.
The majority of student kidnappings have occurred in Nigeria’s northwestern regions, where criminal organizations conduct abductions seeking ransom payments.
In a separate development, the presidents of the United States and Nigeria announced that a joint military operation successfully eliminated Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, who served as the global second-in-command for ISIS in Borno during the early morning hours Saturday.
