Mass Kidnapping Crisis in Nigeria: Over 300 Students and Teachers Abducted in Second School Attack This Week

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Nigeria:

A Christian organization reported on Saturday that 315 students and teachers were abducted a day earlier from St Mary's co-education school in Niger state, marking the second mass school kidnapping in Nigeria within a week.

This alarming incident followed Monday's attack in neighboring Kebbi state, where gunmen kidnapped 25 schoolgirls.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) confirmed that "after a verification exercise," they determined that "The total number of victims abducted ... is now 303 students and 12 teachers."

The abducted students represent nearly half of St Mary's total student population of 629.

Nigerian government officials have not yet released official numbers regarding the kidnapping.

In response to these security threats, authorities in nearby Katsina and Plateau states have ordered all schools to close as a precautionary measure.

The Niger state government has also closed numerous schools, and President Bola Tinubu canceled his international commitments, including attendance at the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to address the crisis.

These two abductions, along with an attack on a church in western Nigeria that resulted in two fatalities, occurred after US President Donald Trump threatened military intervention over alleged killings of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.

Nigeria continues to deal with the trauma of the Boko Haram kidnapping of nearly 300 girls from Chibok in northeastern Borno state over a decade ago, with some victims still missing.

According to CAN, Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, the Catholic Bishop of Kontagora diocese overseeing St Mary's school, provided updated figures after visiting the site.

"After we left the school at Papiri, we decided to make calls, do verification exercise and do further enquiries on those we had thought escaped successfully, only to discover that 88 more students were also captured after they tried to escape," he stated.

"This now makes it 303 students (male and female) including 12 teachers (4 females and 8 males) bringing the total to number of abducted persons to 315," the bishop added.

For years, heavily armed criminal groups have intensified attacks in rural areas across northwestern and central Nigeria, where government presence is minimal. These gangs have killed thousands and conducted numerous kidnappings for ransom.

These criminal organizations maintain camps in a vast forest spanning several states including Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Niger.

A UN source speaking anonymously suggested that the children abducted in Kebbi on Monday were likely taken to the Birnin Gwari forest in nearby Kaduna state.

In a separate incident on Tuesday, gunmen attacked a church in western Nigeria during a service that was being broadcast online, killing two people and reportedly abducting dozens of worshippers.

As Nigeria confronts multiple security challenges, kidnapping has proliferated nationwide, becoming a preferred tactic of both bandit groups and jihadists.

Although the bandit groups typically have no ideological motivations and are primarily driven by financial gain, security analysts and authorities are increasingly concerned about their growing alliances with jihadist groups from northeastern Nigeria.

Jihadist organizations have been waging a 16-year insurgency in northeastern Nigeria with the goal of establishing an Islamic Caliphate.