Scores of schoolgirls missing after attack on Yobe school

MORE than 100 girls were missingovernight, police said, two days after a Boko Haram attack on their school in northeast Nigeria that has raised fears of a repeat of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping that shocked the world.

Islamist militants stormed the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe state, on Monday evening. Locals initially said the girls and their teachers fled.

But fears have been growing about the whereabouts of the students. Around 50 parents and guardians converged on the school on Wednesday to demand answers, as police said 111 were still missing.

The police commissioner of Yobe state, Abdulmaliki Sumonu told reporters in the state capital, Damaturu, that “815 students returned to the school and were visibly seen, out of 926 in the school”.

“The rest are missing. No case of abduction has so far been established,” he added.

The length of time since the attack and Boko Haram’s use of kidnapping as a weapon during its nearly nine-year insurgency has increased fears of another mass abduction.

The jihadists gained worldwide notoriety in April 2014 when they abducted 276 girls from their school in Chibok, in neighbouring Borno state.

Fifty-seven escaped in the immediate aftermath and since May last year, 107 have either escaped or been released as part of a government-brokered deal.

A total of 112 are still being held.

Abubakar Shehu, whose niece is among those missing from Dapchi, told AFP: “Our girls have been missing for two days and we don’t know their whereabouts.

“Although we were told they had run to some villages, we have been to all these villages mentioned without any luck. We are beginning to harbour fears the worst might have happened.

“We have the fear that we are dealing with another Chibok scenario.”

The state-run boarding school in Dapchi caters for girls aged 11 and above from across Yobe state, which is one of three worst affected by the insurgency.

Inuwa Mohammed, whose 16-year-old daughter, Falmata, is also missing, said it was a confused picture and that parents had been frantically searching surrounding villages.

“Nobody is telling us anything officially,” he said. “We still don’t know how many of our daughters were recovered and how many are still missing.

“We have been hearing many numbers, between 67 and 94.”

Yobe’s education commissioner, Mohammed Lamin, said the school had been shut and a rollcall of all the girls who have returned was being conducted.

“It is only after the head-count that we will be able to say whether any girls were taken,” he said.

Some of the girls had fled to villages up to 30 kilometres away through the remote bushland, he added.

Nigeria’s information minister said he would visit Dapchi on Thursday with the defence and foreign ministers.