Security Fears Intensify as More Than 300 Schoolchildren Kidnapped in Nigeria

AFP

One of the dormitory rooms at St Mary’s co-educational school in Niger state.

Security concerns have escalated across Nigeria after more than 300 students and teachers were kidnapped in one of the country’s largest mass abductions, a Christian organisation confirmed on Saturday.

Gunmen raided St Mary’s Co-educational School in Niger State in western Nigeria early on Friday, just days after a separate attack on a secondary school in neighbouring Kebbi State, where 25 girls were seized.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) initially reported 227 people abducted from St Mary’s, but after what it described as a “verification exercise”, the number rose to 303 students and 12 teachers. The victims, aged eight to 18, account for nearly half of the school’s 629 pupils.

The federal government has not confirmed the updated figures.

Niger State’s governor, Mohammed Umar Bago, said intelligence and police authorities were still conducting a full headcount. His administration has now ordered the closure of all schools in the state, with neighbouring states following suit as a precaution.

The national education ministry has also directed that 47 boarding secondary schools be shut across the country.

President Bola Tinubu cancelled international engagements, including the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to focus on the unfolding crisis.

The recent wave of violence – two large-scale school kidnappings and an attack on a church in western Nigeria that left two dead and dozens abducted – follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat of military action over what he described as widespread killings of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.

U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth urged Nigeria to take “urgent and enduring action to stop violence against Christians”, according to the Pentagon.

Nigeria continues to grapple with the trauma of the Chibok abductions more than a decade ago, when Boko Haram kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls. Many remain missing.

A video circulated by CAN features a distressed St Mary’s staff member recalling the attack, describing the sound of motorcycles and cars before “serious bang, bang on different gates of the compound”. She said she heard children crying as the armed men moved through the dormitories for nearly three hours.

About 600km away, in the outskirts of Abuja, anxious parents rushed to collect their children after authorities ordered the closure of several boarding schools.
“How can 300 students be taken away at the same time?” asked Stella Shaibu, a nurse who picked up her daughter in Bwari. “The government is not doing anything.”

She added that if the U.S. government could intervene, “I’m totally in support.”

In the attack on a church earlier in the week, gunmen stormed a service being broadcast online, killing two worshippers and abducting dozens more.

For years, heavily armed criminal groups have carried out killings and mass kidnappings for ransom across rural areas of north-west and central Nigeria, where state security forces have minimal presence. Although these gangs are primarily driven by financial motives, their growing cooperation with jihadist factions in the north-east has deepened national and international alarm.

Source: AFP


PUKMEDIA