Girls afraid to go back to school after Boko Haram raid

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Frightened students are staying away from the school in northern Nigeria where Boko Haram extremists seized 110 girls in a raid a week ago. The Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi in Yobe state had been closed following the attack that reminded many of Boko Haram‘s kidnapping of 276 girls from a boarding school in Chibok in 2014.

Teachers resumed classes Monday but students were absent.

One parent, Mohammed Mele, says his two children are too scared to return. Another parent says they are looking for a new school for their children.

Yobe state education commissioner Mohammed Lamin says students are still going through trauma and the school will reopen when “frayed nerves cool down.”

Nigeria’s government for the first time Sunday acknowledged that 110 girls remain missing. President Muhammadu Buhari’s government has come under pressure over continued Boko Haram attacks in the country’s north, after repeatedly declaring the Islamic extremist group defeated.