Armed Nigerian gunmen conducted a mass abduction of 73 young children in the region's northwestern Zamfara State, forcing schools to close down amid fears of additional kidnappings of students.

In a statement, local police reported that a large number of students were kidnapped from a state-run high school in Zamfara's Maradun district. Officials added that the high school was being targeted by "armed bandits" in the area.

Nigerian Mass Student Kidnappings

The Zamfara State Police Command noted that the abduction of the children followed the previous invasion of the school by a large number of bandits equipped with guns. Officials added that they have deployed a search and rescue team to cooperate with the military to locate and rescue the missing students. Authorities have also increased security at Kaya Village to protect communities from further attacks.

On Thursday, Ibrahim Dosara, Zamfara's Information Commissioner, said that schools all around the state were forced to close down to prevent more kidnappings. In a statement, the official revealed that they closed primary and secondary schools in the region but allowed some schools who were still writing examinations to finish before shutting down, CNN reported.

The latest attack comes only days after armed men released 91 students in north-central Niger State. The children were previously abducted for ransom, which the parents of the victims paid thousands of dollars for in exchange for the hostages.

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Before the Wednesday kidnappings, about 1,000 students were kidnapped in about a dozen schools across the region since December. The United Nations, agency responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, UNICEF, said that about 200 children are still in captivity, NBC News reported.

The Armed Suspects

The gunmen were described as bandits but their actual relation of the recent attackers to previous ones remains unclear. Nine different states have suffered from attacks from armed men, and students, including preschoolers and university students, have been the targets of the kidnappings.

Three different groups of students were victims of kidnappings in three separate states, which are Niger, Kaduna, and Zamfara. The hostages were all released within 24 hours of each other, leading some to believe that it may have been more than just a coincidence. Some claim that the bandits are in leagues with each other.

Witnesses said that the armed bandits were young men from the Fulani ethnic group, who are known to be a nomadic tribe of cattle herders. They are currently in a decades-long conflict with Hausa farming communities, where they are fighting for access to water and grazing land.

Some officials argued that the group had begun to fight back because they felt fear for their communities who are neglected by the Nigerian government. However, some kidnappers appeared to simply be opportunists who wanted to make money off of ransom payments, Idayat Hassan, leader of Democracy and Development, a West Africa-focused policy advocacy and research organization, said.

Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, a Nigerian journalist who works as an editor for the Abuja-based Daily Trust newspapers, has previously interviewed some of the armed gunmen. The suspects said they have set up dozens of camps in remote forest areas in the northwestern region of the country, the New York Post reported

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