Abducted students of the Zamfara State College of Agriculture and Animal Sciences (CAAS), Bakura have sent a “Save Our Lives” plea to Governor Bello Matawalle and the state government.
PREMIUM TIMES reports that the students, 15 of them, and four staff were abducted in a Sunday night attack in the college premises in Bakura.
The college registrar, Aliyu Bakura, confirmed the incident to BBC Hausa Monday morning.
He said four persons, including a police officer and three gatemen, were killed in the attack.
This newspaper published exclusively the names of the victim.
Mr Matawalle expressed sadness over the abduction, noting that the government had been strengthening its capacity to provide security to schools across the state since the abduction of Jangebe school girls.
The video clip
In the 30 seconds video clip seen by the PREMIUM TIMES, one of the students is heard in an emotion-laden voice calling on the state government to do the needful.
In the video, the students and some of the female staff are seen squatting and blindfolded while the bandits surround them.
All the seven bandits around the students carry AK 47 guns.
The students, who are obviously holding the phone, said “Peace be unto you all. You can all see the situation we are in! We’ are the students of Zamfara College of Agriculture and Animal Sciences Bakura that were kidnapped. As you can see, we are being threatened with death by them unless the government does something about it in 24 hours.
“They have taken us to where they deposited the corpses of those they kidnapped in Yarkofoji community and they confirmed to us that if the government fails to take action from now to tomorrow morning…”
Both of them spoke in the Hausa language.
The Yarkofoji attack
Yarkofoji, a local community in Bakura Local Government Area, was attacked on Sunday morning, about 10 hours before the abduction in CAAS.
Eight people were killed while 17 others were kidnapped during the attack in Yarkofoji.
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A local, Abdulnasir Abubakar, said among those killed were Bashiru Dan Alhazai, Atiku Sule Dan-Iya, Isiya kulele, Aliyu Badamasi, Baki Biyu, Kabiru, an unnamed woman, among others.
According to the student in the video clip, some of those abducted in Yarkofoji have been killed by the bandits.
A former senior staffer of the College who now works with the Zamfara State University in Talata Mafara, confirmed that the bandits sent the video to some parents of the abducted children.
“Yes, I can confirm that and some of them (bandits) have started discussing ransom with the parents,” he said.