KADUNA, Nigeria – The kidnapping for the ransom business is booming in northern Nigeria, and students are its hottest commodity.
Just before midnight on March 11, gunmen entered a school about 300 meters from a military training college in Kaduna State and captured dozens of students from their homes. It took less than 12 hours for the kidnappers to issue a now familiar request, through a grainy video posted on Facebook.
“They want 500 million Naira,” said one of the terrified hostages at the Federal College of Forestry, shirtless in a clearing, about $ 1 million. Masked men wielding Kalashnikovs stepped among the 39 students – mostly young – and then began hitting them with ships.
“Our lives are in danger,” a woman shouted. “Just give them what they want.”
On March 13, the Nigerian army blocked an attempt to abduct another 300 students at a boarding school less than 80 miles away. The next day, the children were in a group of 11 abducted people from the city of Suleja, in the Nigerian state of Niger.