Around a dozen children kidnapped in central Nigeria

MINNA - Armed men have kidnapped around a dozen children in central Nigeria, local and security sources told AFP Sunday, in the latest mass abduction in the country's troubled Niger state.

Gunmen on motorcycles seized the children on Saturday near the town of Maigujeri in Rafi district while they were returning from a farm where they had been helping their Quranic school teacher harvest maize, the sources said.

A security report seen by AFP said 18 children had been abducted, while local resident Mohammed Abdullahi said the number was closer to 12.

The kidnapping is the latest in a wave of attacks by heavily armed criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, who have intensified violent raids, abductions and cattle theft in Niger State in recent months.

"They were kidnapped on their way back home from their teacher's farm," Abdullahi said, adding that one child was shot and was receiving treatment at a hospital in Minna, the state capital.

Police did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

The abduction follows a string of mass kidnappings in the state by criminal gangs, some of which have forged links with jihadist groups operating in northwestern and central Nigeria.

At least 47 farmers, many of them women, were abducted in September while harvesting groundnuts, while around 50 children were snatched from a farm in August and later released after a ransom was paid.

More than 250 children from a Catholic boarding school in Papiri, also in Niger state, were abducted last November and freed a month later after a large ransom payment. - AFP