(LifeSiteNews) — Within just one week close to 500 children were kidnapped in two mass abductions in the continuing political unrest caused by the unchecked religious genocide perpetrated by militant Islamic Fulani terrorists.
On March 7, Fulani militants kidnapped around 270 pupils from primary and secondary schools in the precinct of Kuriga in Kaduna State, Nigeria, while just a week before, on February 28, terrorists kidnapped 200 girls febrand women in Borno State.
TruthNigeria reported that local sources said the March 7 abductors were likely “working for kidnap kingpin Dogo Gide, whose network reportedly includes as many as 2,000 armed mercenaries.” According to the report, the region of the kidnappings is “a terrorist hub and a known refuge for the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgency known as Ansaru and the Islamic State groups known as Boko Haram (Western Learning Forbidden) and Islamic State of West Africa.”
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Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State went to Kuriga the day of the kidnappings, vowing to find and return all the children.
“With pain in my heart, I visited Kuriga, Chikun Local Government, where bandits kidnapped primary and secondary school pupils and students, to commiserate with members of the community and assure them that all steps are been taken to ensure the safe return of the pupils and students,” Sani said in a statement on the incident posted on X.
With pain in my heart, I visited Kuriga, Chikun Local Government, where bandits kidnapped primary and secondary school pupils and students, to commiserate with members of the community and assure them that all steps are been taken to ensure the safe return of the pupils and… pic.twitter.com/gPMaLEK20m
— Senator Uba Sani (@ubasanius) March 7, 2024
Sani continued:
I have briefed Mr. President and the National Security Adviser on the Kuriga situation. I received strong assurances from them that all measures are been taken to bring back the pupils and students. A Security Committee will be established in Kuriga, with membership drawn from key stakeholders in Kuriga Community, Security Agencies, and the State Government. I will make a strong case to the Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Army Staff for the establishment of a Military Base in Kuriga to strengthen security in the area.
The unfortunate Kuriga incident reinforces our positions in support of the establishment of State Police. With State Police, there will be a standing Police Force in Kuriga drawn from members of the community who understand the terrain, the people and the issues at play. They can gather intelligence with ease. They will also be constitutionally empowered to bear arms, including sophisticated ones. This is important because Vigilante Groups are not allowed to carry arms. They are always at the mercy of these criminal elements who have scant regard for human life.
A schoolteacher who witnessed the March 7 kidnapping, Malam Abdullahi Adamu Kuriga, told TruthNigeria that the abduction took place at exactly 8:46 a.m. Kuriga recounted, “The students were at the assembly ground, reciting the national anthem, while the pupils from the primary school had gone to their classes already. The terrorists, who numbered 45 or more, came on motorbikes. Many rode on their bikes singularly instead of two on a bike.”
One teacher was shot, and the abductors headed toward Niger State through the forests and hills after kidnapping 270 children.
The incident was not the first time the terrorists had appeared in the village. Kuriga resident Garba Fodio told reporters that Fulani militants had invaded the community just two months before in January, when they killed the school’s principal.
“Since January this year, we have been witnessing Fulani Islamic terrorist activities, and so we knew that they would come,” Fodio said. “Sometimes, they would come and take away our crops in our farms, and sometimes we would allow their cattle to graze on our farmlands.”
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The March 7 abductions comes short on the heels of another kidnapping conducted in Borno State, Nigeria, just a week prior. On February 28, terrorists linked to Boko Haram abducted 200 girls and women. The report was confirmed by U.N. investigators.
David Otto, a London-based security expert said of the incident, “The bad actors were either Boko Haram, or Islamic State of West Africa, or people representing themselves as such. Sex trafficking is part of it, since a lot of the young fighters want wives.”
The Daily Trust, which broke the story, reported that some families of the victims “accused the local government chairman, state and federal lawmakers of keeping mute,” despite the desperate situation in which the families found themselves.
“We informed everyone in the government, from the local government chairman to the members of the National Assembly that these girls were abducted but none of them took any action,” Modu Mustapha, who has been displaced due to Fulani violence, said.
Another parent of abducted children lamented the government silence at the time, saying, “Today is the third (fourth) day that our children were abducted but no delegation from the government has come to address us.”
An official at one of the displacement camps related that, as a consequence of government inaction, parents were taking the risk themselves to go in search of their children. A woman who had three of her children abducted said she would “rather die in search of her children” than allow them to fall into “the hand of the insurgents,” the official said.
Confirming that all the displacement camps were “seriously affected” by the abductions, he lamented:
Most of the parents no longer sleep at night, and nobody cares to look into their situation. If you have an iota of sympathy, you must be perturbed about their situation, but these government people don’t care.
The Nigerian Army has since dispatched troops on the ground and air units for a search and rescue mission.
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Law professor Robert Destro, a former assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration, commented that the U.S. has been complicit in such abductions by doing little to nothing to pressure the Nigerian government to address and remedy the situation.
“The U.S. government has known for years that kidnapping for ransom is a major problem in Nigeria, but it has done little to use its considerable influence to encourage the Nigerian government to create effective, local police forces,” Destro said of the situation. “Our government spends over $1.2 billion in Nigeria on social and economic assistance and hundreds of millions more for counter-terrorism and military training.”
Denouncing the continual abductions for ransom as human trafficking, Destro asked, “Is it too much to expect our diplomats to work with the Nigerian government to ensure that the money is used to protect Nigerians from slave traders?”
“Kidnapping for ransom is human trafficking. A government that lets it happen is facilitating human trafficking. And when the U.S. supports that government with billions in assistance without demanding that at least part of it be used to train and equip local police, we are complicit in that slave trade. Our government needs to stop making excuses for the kidnappers and help the Nigerians to stop them.”
Under international law, the mass kidnapping of children is an act of genocide. Article II of the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948, states:
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Reflecting on the gravity of the situation in Nigeria, Judd Saul, the CEO of TruthNigeria and founder of Equipping the Persecuted, commented, “Nigeria is the only country in the world where people can get kidnapped by the hundreds with no resistance whatsoever. This is either due to an underfunded and poorly managed security infrastructure, or the people in charge of the security are complicit. This insanity needs to stop now, and I beg the Nigerian leadership to take action instead of blowing faux outrage.”
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