Nigeria: More than 20 university students kidnapped in city centre

Nigerian armed groups, August 2024 Photo: @JubileeC

August 16, 2024 Time: 7:42 PM

They were attacked and abducted by gunmen at around 5:30 pm local time (16:30 GMT) on Friday in Otukpo area of Benue State.

More than 20 medical and dental students and a civil servant were abducted by unidentified gunmen on Friday in Benue state in central Nigeria while they were on their way to a conference, police said.

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The young people from the universities of Maiduguri (northeast) and Jos (centre) travelled together to the annual congress of the Federation of Catholic Students of Medicine and Dentistry (FECAMDS) in the city of Enugu, in south-eastern Nigeria.

They were attacked and abducted by gunmen at around 5:30 pm local time (16:30 GMT) on Friday in Otukpo area of Benue State.

“The news about the kidnapping is true (…). Investigations are underway,” Catherine Anene, spokesperson of the Benue State Police Command, told local media outlet ‘Vanguard’.

Some states in Nigeria, especially in the centre and north-west, are under constant attack by “bandits”, a term used in the country to describe criminal gangs who carry out attacks and mass kidnappings to exact large ransoms and whose members are sometimes referred to as “terrorists”.

The attacks come despite repeated promises by the Nigerian government to end the violence, which claims to have strengthened its security forces.

Author: OSG

Source: EFE-Africanews

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