Fears grew in north-east Nigeria on Wednesday about the fate of potentially scores of girls who have not been seen since attack on their school by suspected Boko Haram fighters two days ago.

Militants stormed the Government Girls Science secondary school in Dapchi, Yobe state, on Monday evening. Locals initially said the girls and their teachers had fled the attack, but many were still missing on Wednesday.


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Boko Haram gained notoriety in April 2014 when its fighters abducted 276 girls from their school in Chibok, in neighbouring Borno state. Fifty-seven escaped in the immediate aftermath and since May last year, and 107 have either escaped or been released as part of a government-brokered deal, but 112 are still being held.

Monday’s incident sparked fears of a repeat of Chibok, and on Wednesday morning some 50 parents and guardians gathered at the school to demand information.

“Our girls have been missing for two days and we don’t know their whereabouts,” said Abubakar Shehu, whose niece is among those missing. “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.”

According to school staff, there were 710 students at the state-run boarding school, which caters for girls aged 11 and above.


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Inuwa Mohammed, whose 16-year-old daughter, Falmata, is also missing, said 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.”

Police in the state, which is one of three in north-east Nigeria worst-affected by the Boko Haram insurgency, said they had no reports of abductions following the attack.

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 headcount 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 (20 miles) away through the remote bushland, he added.

Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a weapon of war since its insurgency began in 2009, seizing thousands of people. Some 300 children were among 500 people abducted from the town of Damasak in November 2014.

Getting accurate information from the remote north-east of Nigeria remains difficult. The army still largely controls access and infrastructure has been devastated by nine years of conflict.

The military in Chibok initially claimed the students had all been found, but was forced to backtrack when parents and the school principal said otherwise.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/21/scores-of-girls-missing-after-new-boko-haram-school-attack?CMP=twt_gu

shebi soldiers don defeat boko haram? I wonder where dem go carry the gals go this time

I suspect pdp .