100 schoolgirls missing after Boko Haram attack

More than 100 girls went missing two days after a Boko Haram attack on their school in northeast Nigeria that has raised fears of a repeat of the 2014 Chibok kidnapping that shocked the world. Islamist militants stormed the Government Girls Science Secondary School in Dapchi, Yobe state.  Locals initially said the girls and their teachers fled.

But fears have been growing about the whereabouts of the students, and one schoolgirl who escaped said it was likely they were taken by Boko Haram fighters.“We have every reason to suspect that they were taken away by the attackers,” said Aisha Yousuf Abdullahi, 16, who returned to her home in Yobe’s commercial hub, Potiskum, reported a leading daily from the state. Anxious parents and guardians converged on the school  to demand answers, with conflicting figures as to how many girls were missing. The Yobe state governor Ebrahim Gaidam said “over 50” remained unaccounted for while the police commissioner of the state said 111 were still missing. “Eight hundred and fifteen students returned to the school and were visibly seen, out of 926 in the school,” said state police commissioner Abdul Maliki Sumonu. “The rest are missing. No case of abduction has so far been established,” he told reporters in the Yobe state capital, Damaturu.