For students kidnapped in Nigeria asking for help

A video clip showed kidnapped students from a college in northwest Nigeria, on Saturday, shuddering on a forest floor as kidnappers beat them with sticks.
The clip spread on social media, where 24 students appeared asking for help in English and Hausa, while one of them said, “The kidnappers want a ransom of 500 million naira ($ 1.31 million).”

“If anyone comes to save us without money, they will kill us,” says another student in the recording, while a man stands behind him with a pistol.

For her part, the college official and the mother of one of the kidnapped students, Billu Muhammad Othman, confirmed that “those who appeared in the clip were some of the kidnapped students, and that among them was a pregnant woman,” while she refused to comment on the ransom demand.

In turn, Commissioner for Security in Kaduna State, Samuel Arwan, said, “The number of missing students is 9 more than what was previously believed to be 23 female and 16 male students.”

He added, “The Kaduna state government is in contact with the college administration while the security services’ efforts continue to track down the missing students.”

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari called for “finding the missing students and returning them safely to their families.”

Gunmen kidnapped 39 male and female students after they stormed the Federal College of Forest Management in Kaduna state last Thursday evening, in the fourth incident of students being kidnapped in northern Nigeria since last December.

Source: “Reuters”