Official: 17 Nigerian Students Rescued from Boko Haram, Two Dead

Katsina state’s Governor Aminu Masari told a local radio station he had ordered an operation to be carried out after hundreds of students were kidnapped by the group from a boarding school in Kankara, a small town in Katsina, on Friday.

On Tuesday, Boko Haram, which had kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls in the country’s Chibok region in 2014, claimed responsibility.

“The majority of the kidnapped students are in the Zamfara forest in the neighbouring province. Efforts are under way to save them,” he said.

Katsina state’s Police Spokesman Gambo Isah said a security guard was injured during the operation and additional security forces would be dispatched to the area for search and rescue operations.

Attackers on motorcycles stormed the all-boys Government Science Secondary School late on Friday and engaged security forces in a fierce gun battle, forcing hundreds of students to flee and hide in the surrounding forest.

Defence Minister Bashir Salihi Magashi visited the area, promising the students would be rescued soon, as parents and residents continued to demonstrate for their release.

The number of missing students also remains unclear – 320 or 333, according to two accounts by officials, while residents in Kankara put it at more than 500, AFP news agency reported on Wednesday.

Masari has ordered the closure of all boarding schools in the state in the wake of the attack.