In Nigeria, West Africa, 73 school children have been kidnapped by armed men. The students were abducted from a state secondary school in the northwestern state of Zamfara, confirmed a police spokesman, Muhammad Shehu, of the German press agency on Wednesday evening. The identity and motive of the perpetrators were initially unclear. In response, the state government closed all elementary and secondary schools and imposed a night curfew. Major child abductions related to school robberies are common in Africa’s most populous country. Behind it are both Islamist terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and criminal gangs who want to extort ransom. Since the beginning of the year, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of abducted people. Authorities estimate that around 1,000 children have been kidnapped since December 2020. Many of the boys and girls have disappeared without a trace. The most spectacular case occurred in 2014 when the Islamist terrorist militia Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls.