Gunmen have abducted more than 300 students and teachers in one of Nigeria’s largest mass kidnappings, a Christian group said, heightening security concerns in Africa’s most populous nation.
The raid occurred early Friday at St Mary’s co‑educational school in Niger state. The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) initially reported 227 people seized but, after a verification exercise, said 303 students and 12 teachers — boys and girls aged roughly eight to 18 — were taken. That number is nearly half of the school’s 629 pupils. The federal government has not confirmed the figures.
Niger state governor Mohammed Umar Bago said intelligence and police teams were “doing the head count”. His administration, which had already ordered some schools closed, announced the closure of all schools in the state while nearby states also shut schools as a precaution. The national education ministry ordered 47 boarding secondary schools across the country to close. President Bola Tinubu cancelled international engagements, including the G20 summit in Johannesburg, to address the crisis.
The attack at St Mary’s followed a separate Monday raid on a secondary school in neighbouring Kebbi state that seized 25 girls. Earlier this week gunmen also attacked a church in western Nigeria during a service, killing two people and reportedly abducting dozens. These incidents came after US president Donald Trump had threatened military action over killings of Christians in Nigeria; US defence secretary Pete Hegseth urged urgent and lasting action to stop violence against Christians during talks with Nigeria’s national security adviser, the Pentagon said.
In a video shared by CAN, a distressed St Mary’s staff member said she heard motorcycles and cars before repeated “bang, bang” at gates. She described children crying and a security guard wounded, and said attackers operated aggressively for nearly three hours, moving through dormitories.
About 600km away, on the outskirts of Abuja, nurse Stella Shaibu collected her daughter from a Bwari school after closures were ordered. “How can 300 students be taken away at the same time?” she asked, blaming perceived government inaction and saying she would welcome international help.
No group has claimed responsibility. For years, heavily armed criminal gangs in northwest and central Nigeria have killed, raided villages and kidnapped people for ransom in areas with little state presence. These bandit gangs often target rural boarding schools where security is weak and maintain camps in a vast forest spanning several states. Though primarily motivated by money and not ideology, growing ties between some gangs and jihadist groups from the northeast have alarmed authorities and analysts. Nigeria remains scarred by the 2014 abduction of nearly 300 Chibok schoolgirls by Boko Haram; some of those girls are still missing.
