Zürcher Nachrichten - 10 kidnapped as mass abductions shake Nigeria

Police said the Monday night raid in the western state of Kwara targeted the village of Isapa, which neighbours another village where at least 35 people were kidnapped a week before.

Last week, armed gangs also seized more than 300 children from a Catholic school in Nigeria's north-central Niger state, 25 schoolgirls from another school in the northwestern state of Kebbi, and 13 girls in the eastern state of Borno.

Africa's most populous country is facing a long-running security crisis fuelled by jihadist attacks and violence by "bandit" gangs that raid villages, kill people and kidnap for ransom.

US President Donald Trump earlier this month threatened military action over what he described as the "mass slaughter" of Nigeria's Christians -- a claim the Nigerian government rejects.

The religiously diverse country of 230 million people is the scene of long-brewing conflicts that have killed both Christians and Muslims, often indiscriminately.

Kwara state police commissioner Ojo Adekimi said the attackers in the latest raid were herders who had "shot sporadically" and seized women and children from local farming families.

"There is a manhunt for them. Policemen are in the bush with local hunters," he told AFP.

One woman managed to escape and return to the village, he said.

The raid comes one week after gunmen killed two people and kidnapped at least 35 worshippers in an attack on a church in Eruku, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from Isapa.

The abducted worshippers have since returned home.

- 'Need my child back' -

Parents of children kidnapped in the Catholic school raid said they were desperate for their release.

At least 50 victims taken from the school, St Mary's, managed to escape, but more than 265 children and teachers are still being held.

"My son is a small boy. He doesn't even know how to talk," said Michael Ibrahim.

His son, who is four, suffers from asthma, he said.

"We don't know the condition in which the boy is," said Ibrahim, adding the abduction had so sickened his wife that she had to be taken to hospital.

Some of the children abducted are nursery-school age.

"I need my child back. I need my child back. If I had the power to bring my child back, I would do it," another father, Sunday Isaiku, told AFP.

Four days after the St Mary's children were taken, no group has claimed the abduction or contacted the school demanding ransom.

"At this moment, what we want is to get our 265 students and pupils back," Reverend Bulus Yohanna of Kontagora Catholic diocese told AFP, urging the government to act.

"Please help us... to see them back" and "reunite with their parents".

- 'Vile attacks' -

Nigeria's first high-profile mas kidnapping was that of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014, when Islamist group Boko Haram forced 276 girls from their dormitories in the country's northeast.

More than a decade later, about 90 of those girls are still missing.

About 40 percent of the abductions involved demands for ransom.

"Fragmented bandit groups and other armed actors are the most common perpetrators in these abductions," said ACLED.

The United Nations condemned the spate of kidnappings.

"We are shocked at the recent surge in mass abductions in north-central Nigeria," UN rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan told reporters in Geneva, urging the Nigerian government to halt the "vile attacks".

The World Food Programme meanwhile warned that jihadist attacks and instability were pushing hunger to unprecedented levels in northern Nigeria.

Nearly 35 million people are projected to face "severe food insecurity" in the region in 2026, it said, with around 15,000 expected to face "famine-like conditions" in hard-hit Borno state.

S.Scheidegger--NZN