Category: Information

New schools in the administrative areas of Agmait and Akaide, Kerkebet sub-zone, constructed in cooperation with the office of Construction Development in Gash Barka region, the Ministry of Education, Border Patrol Units as well as the public have been inaugurated on 27 May.

The inauguration ceremony of the schools was conducted in the presence of Ambassador Mohammed Ali Hiruy, Governor of the region, Col. Yonas Bitsuamlak, Commander of North-West Command and Border Patrol as well as other officials in the region.

Pointing out that the construction of the new schools attests to the attention the Government is giving to remote areas, Sheik Omar Mohammed-Tahir, a village elder in Agmait, said that signals the bright future of the area.

Ambassador Mohammed Ali Hiruy on his part said that developmental activities being conducted in Agmait attest to the progress being made in terms of ensuring social justice and called on the residents to take advantage of the opportunity provided and send their children to school.

At the event, prizes were handed over to outstanding students by the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare branch in the region.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

An armed gang abducted students from an Islamic school in the north-central Nigerian state of Niger on Sunday, police and state government officials said.

Armed groups carrying out kidnapping for ransom are blamed for a series of raids on schools and universities in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 700 students for ransom since December.

A spokesman for Niger’s state police said in a statement that gunmen on motorcycles attacked the town of Tegina, in the Rafi local government area of the state, around 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) Sunday.

He said the attackers were “shooting indiscriminately and abducted a yet to be ascertained number of children at Salihu Tanko Islamic school.”

The school’s owner, Abubakar Tegina, told Reuters in a phone interview that he witnessed the attack.

“I personally saw between 20 and 25 motorcycles with heavily armed people. They entered the school and went away with about 150 or more of the students,” said Tegina, who lives about 150 meters from the school.

Tegina said there are around 300 pupils between the ages of 7 and 15. He said pupils live at home and only attend classes at the site.

Most students kidnapped in recent months have been taken from boarding schools.

One person was shot dead during the attack and a second person was seriously injured, the state governor’s spokeswoman said.

She said 11 of the children taken were released by the gunmen because they were “too small and couldn’t walk.” A group of bus passengers were also abducted, she said.

Sunday’s attack in Niger state took place the day after the release of the remaining 14 students of a group abducted last month from a university in neighboring Kaduna state.

Source: Voice of America