ASKIRA-UBA, BORNO — Eighty-seven days after insurgents abducted pupils of Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State, parents say they have heard nothing official about their children. The pupils, some of them toddlers, were taken at about 9am on Friday, May 15, 2026. No group has claimed responsibility or demanded a ransom. Ishaya Suya, chairman of the parents, told Daily Trust that pupils abducted in Oriire, Oyo State, on the same day had been freed and their abductors sentenced to life imprisonment, while the Mussa children were still missing. The Mussa ward councillor, Peter Haruna Waba, confirmed that the children were still in captivity, and said a visit by the Commissioner for Education had given the community some hope. The chairman of the Borno network of civil society organisations, Abubakar Suleiman, described the government's silence as unacceptable. A security source told the newspaper that an earlier rescue team was ambushed after picking up about 30 phones left as bait in a mosque in the forest, losing two military trucks and seven motorcycles, and that later operations were halted. The Commissioner for Education, Engr. Abba Lawan Wakilbe, declined to comment and referred questions to the military.