Nigeria's kidnapping nightmare spreads to new regions
Every day for more than two weeks, Aduke Balogun has prayed for her daughter's safe return.
Reliving the events of May 15, she says it was mid-morning when she saw a masked man walking towards the school, News.Az reports, citing CNN.
Gunfire erupted soon after, and in the chaos eight-year-old Kausarat was seized and spirited into the bush in southwest Nigeria's Oyo state.
She was one of more than 30 students and a teacher kidnapped that day.
"Please, please, I am begging the government. We want our children back alive."
The day Balogun's daughter was taken, there were simultaneous attacks on two other nearby schools.
At the LA Primary School, 3 miles away, one teacher was shot dead as he tried to escape through a classroom window, said Lamidi Waheed, a teacher in the school.
"If the government does not take action on the area, pertaining to the security, I don't think that, I can particularly say that nobody will be willing to live in that area again."
The kidnappings have jolted a region long seen as relatively safe compared to more unstable regions further north.
And fueled fears that kidnapping-for-ransom gangs are expanding their operations far beyond traditional hotspots.
Olayinka Ayanlade, the police spokesperson for Oyo state, said authorities hoped to resolve the kidnappings peacefully.
"There's communication, and the communication is progressing, but I will tell you that we are not sparing any effort."
Widespread kidnappings and the ever-expanding presence of armed groups across the country are likely to be key issues in the run-up to Nigeria's next national elections in January.
No group has claimed responsibility for the Oyo attacks, but the military has blamed Boko Haram Islamist militants, which usually operate in the northeast.
Balogun cannot bear to watch the videos of abducted children that are circulating.
She says: "All I want is my daughter."
By Faig Mahmudov
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