Five of the 136 school children kidnapped almost three months ago from Salihu Tanko Islamiya School, Tegina, Niger State, have died, Head Teacher of the school, Abubakar Hassan, has revealed.

The gunmen kidnapped the students from the Islamic school on May 30, in one of the several cases of such attacks on schools in the north, with the state governors of some of the states recently shutting down learning centres in their domains.

Speaking on ARISE NEWS Channel yesterday, Hassan stated that many of the children are young and weak, ranging from four to 17 years, noting that the bandits called him to confirm the deaths and insisting that the money they demanded must be paid in full.

He said he had spoken with the bandits two times in the last three days, stressing that the kidnappers revealed that majority of the kids were seriously ill, including those will swollen legs and other ailments.

I was told they are all weak, apart from the young adults who may be a bit strong. Their clothes are dirty and torn. The bandits asked us to find a way to sew some clothes and pass them over. They (the kids) are almost naked,

he said.

He described the situation as painful, explaining that over 130 kids were still being held after spending close to three months in their abductors’ den.

The obviously distressed head teacher mentioned that the condition of the children remained very bad from the information he had, noting that the parents and several public-spirited people had donated some money which the bandits collected but still refused to free the kids.

People have contributed what they could through their efforts. We don’t have any money again. And we are still gathering money and a number of motorcycles so we can have them released.

We are not happy that our kids are in the bush and we don’t know the date they will be released. We have lost hope in human beings, but we have not lost hope in the Almighty God,

he stated.

Out of the N200 million demanded by the captors, Hassan said that initially, the parents of the children and some sympathisers were able to gather N20 million which had been collected by the suspected criminals but still refused to release any of the children.

We still looked for other ways of getting money and we gathered the sum of N30 million. We have also taken the money to them and yet they declined to release the kids. They are asking for additional N20 million for now,

he explained.

The head teacher said he had begged the bandits several times to release the students after they initially told him two of the kids had died.

I pleaded and I was crying. So, they said they were slashing the ransom to N80 million,

he added.

After the initial loss of the two kids, Hassan said he was informed that two had earlier been lost, in addition to the one that died in the early days of the abduction.

That makes it five children because we had lost one before, lost another two and we now lost another two,

he said.

In July, an elderly man sent to deliver a ransom to secure the release of some of the abducted students of the school located in Rafi local government was reportedly seized by the kidnappers. It is not clear if he has been released till now.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.