More than 300 students and teachers have been kidnapped in one of the largest mass abductions in Nigeria, according to a Christian group that revised its earlier figure after a verification exercise. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said on Saturday that 303 students and 12 teachers were seized in an early Friday raid on St Mary's co-educational school in Niger state.
The attack followed a similar incident on Monday in neighbouring Kebbi state, where 25 girls were abducted from a secondary school. The missing pupils from St Mary's are aged between eight and 18, and represent nearly half of the school's 629-strong student body. The Nigerian government has not yet commented on the numbers.
Niger state governor Mohammed Umar Bago said intelligence and police were conducting a headcount, and ordered the closure of all schools in the state. Nearby states have also shut schools as a precaution, while the national education ministry has directed that 47 boarding secondary schools across the country be closed. President Bola Tinubu has cancelled international engagements, including attending the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to handle the crisis.
The kidnappings have heightened security fears, particularly after the United States threatened military action over what it called the killing of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria. US defence secretary Pete Hegseth called on the government to take both urgent and enduring action to stop violence against Christians. The abductions also evoke painful memories of the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls by Boko Haram in Chibok more than a decade ago.
A video clip shared by CAN showed a staff member describing the attack, saying children could be heard crying as gunmen pounded the school gates. The local Catholic diocese said the attackers operated for nearly three hours, moving through dormitories. Separately, a nurse collecting her daughter from a school in Abuja questioned how 300 students could be taken at once, and expressed support for American intervention. Heavily armed criminal gangs, motivated by ransom, have long carried out kidnappings in rural north-west and central Nigeria, and their growing alliance with jihadists from the north-east is a growing concern.
