Boko Haram terrorists on Monday abducted three persons and attacked a girls’ secondary school in Yobe State, carting away food items.
The Commissioner of Police in Yobe State, Mr Sumonu Abdulmaliki, said the terrorists abducted all three persons around Geidam Local Government Area after carrying out the attack on Dapchi village in Busari Local Government Area of Yobe State.
Abdulmaliki said no life was lost in the attack and there has been no reported case of abduction in the Government Girls College Dapchi.
Dapchi is 100 kms north of Damaturu, the state capital, and it remains one major town that has not recorded an attack by the terrorists since the start of the insurgency in the troubled region.
Some residents of the town told The Gazetter on Tuesday morning that the terrorists did not hurt anyone but shot into the air to scare people off before making away with foodstuff and petrol.
Witnesses said when the insurgents got to the secondary school, they broke into the store and stole food items; after the teachers and students fled to safety.
A convoy of fighters in pickup trucks had descended on Dapchi village around 6 pm, targeting the school, a resident Sheriff Aisami told AFP.
“When they stormed the village they began shooting and setting off explosives,” Aisami said.
“This drew the attention of the girls in the Girls Science Secondary School, so the girls and the teachers were able to escape before the attackers got into the school.”
According to the Police Commissioner, security forces in the state quickly responded to the attack and repelled the terrorists.
The attack on the school comes four years after Boko Haram’s audacious kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in April 2014.
That kidnapping drew the world’s attention to the jihadist insurgency in northeast Nigeria.
President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general, came to power in 2015, promising to stamp out the Islamist movement.
But despite retaking Nigerian territory from Boko Haram and capturing and killing hundreds of the insurgents, the group continues to stage attacks targeting both civilians and military targets, and frequently uses young girls as suicide bombers.
Since 2009, the Boko Haram insurgency has left at least 20,000 dead and made over 2.6 million more homeless.
