Kuriga, Nigeria—

Rashida Hamza is in despair. All but one of her six children were among nearly 300 students abducted from a school in conflict-torn northwest Nigeria.

She is still in shock more than two days after her children, aged seven to 18, went to school in the remote town of Curiga on Saturday, only to be chased away by a group of gunmen.

“We have never seen anything like this where our children are kidnapped from school,” she told The Associated Press of a team that arrived in the Kaduna state town to report on Thursday’s attack. “We didn’t know what to do, but we trusted God.”

The kidnapping in Kuriga was just one of three mass kidnappings in northern Nigeria since late last week, a reminder of the security crisis facing Africa’s most populous country. A group of gunmen abducted 15 children from a school in Sokoto, another northwestern state, before dawn on Saturday, days after 200 people were abducted in the northeastern state of Borno.

It was in the town of Chibok in Borno that Nigerian school kidnappings made headlines a decade ago, and in 2014 Islamic extremists shocked the world by abducting more than 200 schoolgirls.

No group has claimed responsibility for any of the recent kidnappings. But Islamic extremists waging an insurgency in the northeast are suspected of carrying out the kidnappings in Borno. Locals blame the school kidnappings on herders who have clashed with settled communities.

At least 100 children aged 12 or younger were among the students kidnapped Thursday. Nura Ahmad, a teacher, said they had just settled into their classrooms at government primary and secondary schools when gunmen “came in, dozens of them, riding bicycles and shooting sporadically”.

The school is located on the roadside at the entrance to the town of Curiga, which is hidden among forests and grasslands.

“They surrounded the school and blocked all access… and roads” to prevent help from arriving, before removing the children in an operation that lasted less than five minutes, Ahmed said.

Fourteen-year-old Abdullahi Usman braved gunfire to escape his captors.

“Those who refused to move quickly were either forced onto motorcycles or threatened with shooting into the air,” Abdullahi said.

“The robbers were shouting ‘Go! Go!’” he said.

Nigerian police and soldiers went to the forest the next day to search for the children, but the search through the vast swath of woods in northwest Nigeria could take weeks, observers said.

“My brain has been distracted since this happened,” said Shehu Lawal, the father of a 13-year-old boy who was among those abducted.

“My child didn’t even have breakfast before leaving. Even his mother fainted… We were worried and thought she would die,” Rawal said.

Lawan Yaro’s five grandchildren were among those abducted, and some villagers say their hopes have turned to fear.

People are used to insecurity in the area, “but never like this,” he said.

“We cry and ask the government and God for help, but the gunman will decide to take the children back,” Yarrow said.

“God will help us,” he said.

Since the abduction of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok in 2014 sparked the global #BringBackOurGirls social media movement, at least 1,400 Nigerian students have been kidnapped from schools in similar circumstances. Some remain imprisoned, including nearly 100 Chibok girls.

But schools are not the only target.

Thousands of people were kidnapped across Nigeria last year alone, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. The crisis has even affected families in the capital, Abuja. President Bola Tinubu took office last year after being elected on a campaign promise to address the kidnapping problem.

Conflict analysts say a major factor fueling the kidnappings is the ease of smuggling weapons through Nigeria’s poorly policed ​​borders. For example, more than half of the 1,500-kilometer border with Niger crosses the Northwest Territories. Although the region is mostly savanna, there are also large tracts of unmanaged and uninhabited forest that provide havens for organized gangs and their kidnapped victims.

In 2022, Nigerian lawmakers passed a bill banning ransom payments, but kidnappers in Nigeria are known for their brutality, prompting many families to scramble to pay ransoms.

Weary of a 14-year-old Islamist insurgency in northeastern Nigeria, the army continues to conduct airstrikes and special military operations in the region. But armed gangs continue to grow in number, often working with extremists seeking to expand their operations beyond the northeast.

James Barnett, a researcher at the US-based Hudson Institute who specializes in West Africa, said armed groups are “adjusting their strategies to further consolidate their positions in the northwest through extortion”.

“Their mentality is that they should be allowed the freedom to do what they want in the Northwest and if the state challenges them, directly or indirectly, they will have to respond and demonstrate their power,” Barnett said.

Now, the 89-kilometer road from Kuriga town to Kaduna city is dotted with more than a dozen checkpoints and military trucks. But whenever a new security incident requires a military presence, those soldiers may quickly be deployed elsewhere.

People in Kuriga can only hope that schoolchildren can return safely and that the sense of security they now feel around the military trucks will endure.

“We want help from the government so they can arrest the attackers,” said Hamza, a mother worried about her five abducted children. “The gunmen don’t allow us to farm, they don’t allow us to have peace outside… We have no security – no soldiers, no police.”