Armed bandits have attacked Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe in Talata Mafara Local Government Area of Zamfara State, kidnapping hundreds of schoolgirls.
This is coming barely a week after the abduction of dozens of schoolboys in Kagara, Niger State.
Witnesses said the bandits stormed the Zamfara school, located on the outskirt Kwanar Bagare, around 1:40am after breaking the gate.
The latest abduction in Zamfara comes at a time when banditry is increasingly threatening the peace of the nation, especially from within the northeastern and northwestern region.
A major focus for the bandits in recent times has been to attack secondary schools and whisk students away, mostly, in a bid to use them as bargaining chips in their negotiations with the government.
In a bid to forestall an attack of this nature, the Zamfara State government had last December ordered the immediate closure of 10 boarding and day schools in the state.
According to the government, the affected schools were those that share borders with Katsina, Kaduna, and Sokoto States which for quite a while have been prone to banditry.
The Government Girls Secondary School in Jangebe happens, however, not to be one of the schools ordered to close.
No officials were abducted by the bandits, who briskly shepherded the schoolgirls into the bush.