Heavily armed men have kidnapped more than
100 girls from a secondary school in northeast
Nigeria's Borno state and torched the
surrounding town, a day after a deadly
bombing in the African state's capital.
No one claimed responsibility for Tuesday's
kidnapping, but fingers were pointed at
fighters of the armed group Boko Haram,
which means "Western education is
forbidden".
"Many girls were abducted by the rampaging
gunmen who stormed the school in a convoy
of vehicles," Emmanuel Sam, an education
official in the town of Chibok, where the attack
took place, told AFP news agency.
He spoke from Borno's capital Maiduguri
where he said he fled after the attack at the
Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok.
The attackers came "in trucks and on
motorcycles and headed to the school", where
they overpowered soldiers deployed to guard
it, a witness who requested anonymity said.
He said soldiers had been deployed to provide
extra security in advance of yearly exams, but
the attackers "subdued the soldiers and took
the girls away".
He was not able to provide an estimate of the
number of girls abducted.
Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked schools in
the northeast during an insurgency that has
killed thousands since 2009.
In an attack earlier this year in Borno,
witnesses said Boko Haram fighters
surrounded a girls' school, forced the students
to leave and ordered them to immediately
return to their villages.
At least 71 people were killed in Abuja's
outskirts on Monday, when a bomb exploded at
a packed bus station, marking the deadliest
attack in the federal capital.
Boko Haram wants to establish a state ruling
by Islamic law in the northeast. Nigeria's
Muslims mainly live in the north while
Christians mostly in the south.
The Abuja explosion raised concerns about the
country's ability to ward off frequent attacks
during the World Economic Forum on Africa
scheduled next month in the capital.
Following the blast, Nigeria has pledged to
deploy more than 6,000 police and soldiers to
protect African heads of state and business
leaders attending the May 7-9 event, based on
the flagship gatherings in Davos, Switzerland.
Africa's top oil producer wants to highlight its
newly acquired status as the largest economy
on the continent.
Monday's attack also added pressure on
President Goodluck Jonathan in the run-up to
February's elections.
