Abuja, Nigeria: Gunmen who kidnapped 287 school children say they will kill them all if $622,000 ransom not paid
CNNAbuja, Nigeria CNN — Gunmen who kidnapped at least 287 school children in Nigeria last Thursday have demanded a ransom of 1 billion naira and threatened to kill all of the students if their demands are not met, a member of the local community told CNN on Wednesday. They said will only last for three weeks or 20 days from the date they kidnapped the children and if there’s no action from the government, they will kill all of them,” said Aminu Jibril, a resident of Kuriga village, in Kaduna state, where the school is located. Jibril also told CNN that the perpetrators said the kidnapping was “a way of getting back at the government and security agencies for killing their gang members.” The member of the Kuriga community said he believed the kidnappers got his number from the head of the school’s junior secondary section, who was kidnapped alongside the students. More than 300 students were taken early Thursday morning by armed bandits on motorcycles who stormed the LEA Primary and Secondary School in Kuriga village, in Kaduna’s Chikun district, the state’s police spokesman Mansur Hassan told CNN on Friday.