Troops of Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) have rescued 10 National Examinations Council (NECO) candidates and teachers abducted during a terrorist attack on a secondary school in Lassa community, Askira/Uba Local Government Area of Borno State.
Also, the Oyo State Police Command separately rescued two abducted children and smashed a kidnapping syndicate in the Ibarapa axis.
Acting Military Information Officer of OPHK, Captain Mohammed Goni, disclosed in a statement that suspected Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) terrorists, riding motorcycles, stormed the Technical Secondary School in Lassa, near the Adamawa State border, at about 9 am, while students were sitting their NECO examinations.
The attackers, he said, opened fire, killing a teacher and abducting an unspecified number of students and teachers.
The Theatre Command immediately deployed troops and scrambled strike and Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft from the Air Component of Operation Hadin Kai to support a coordinated search-and-rescue mission, he said.
According to Goni, troops made contact with the terrorists around Daggu, and in the ensuing firefight rescued 10 victims unharmed.
He said they were receiving care and added that seven motorcycles used in the attack had been captured.
“Regrettably, during the intense firefight, one gallant soldier of Operation Hadin Kai and a member of the Civilian Joint Task Force made the supreme sacrifice in the course of defending innocent civilians,” Goni stated.
He added that efforts were ongoing to rescue the remaining abductees and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Goni said operations against the terrorists responsible for the attack had been intensified, and security measures strengthened across vulnerable communities and schools in the area.
He described the attack as evidence of the desperation of terrorist groups which, under sustained military pressure, had increasingly targeted soft civilian populations.
The latest attack came barely a month after suspected Boko Haram insurgents abducted 42 students from Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in the same Askira/Uba LGA.
Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume, who represents Borno South Senatorial District, urged the Federal Government to adopt a more proactive approach to tackling insurgency.
He called for stronger coordination among the military, police, intelligence services and other security outfits to confront insurgents and stem the tide of abductions in the North-East.
In Oyo State, the police command recorded a separate breakthrough after a gang of heavily armed men on Friday, stormed Ebinpejo Village, via Lanlate in Ibarapa East LGA, ransacked houses, assaulted residents and abducted two children.
Oyo State Police spokesman, DSP Ayanlade Olayinka, said the Commissioner of Police, CP Abimbola Olugbenga, ordered a massive manhunt, directing the Divisional Police Officer in Lanlate to mobilise a joint security team comprising police operatives, the Amotekun Corps, local vigilantes and hunters to comb the forest.
