Kidnap Update: Over 300 Students and Teachers in Terrorist Den - CNN

Armed bandits kidnapped more than 300 students at a private Catholic school in Nigeria’s north-central Niger State, authorities say, the latest in a spate of mass abductions and attacks that have drawn the attention of the Trump administration.

Despite some students managing to get to safety during Friday’s attack, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said 303 students and 12 teachers were abducted in the raid, updating an earlier figure of 215 students. Some are as young as ten.

The figure was updated after a final census was carried out, according to CAN’s Niger State chapter chairman, Most. Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, visited St. Mary’s School on Friday to meet with the parents of the abducted children.

Yohanna said the additional 88 students “were also captured after they tried to escape” during the attack, adding that the students were both male and female and aged between ten to 18 years old, Yohanna’s spokesman Daniel Atori told CNN on Saturday.

Authorities announced some federal and state-run schools in northern Nigeria have temporarily closed following Friday’s abduction to forestall further attacks.

 

The Niger State chapter chairman meet with the parents of the kidnapped children. - Christian Association of Nigeria

The abduction in Niger state, which borders Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, follows a similar attack on a church by gunmen in neighboring Kwara State earlier in the week. During the church attack, at least two people were killed, and several worshippers, including the pastor, were abducted.

In addition, this week, armed men kidnapped 25 female students when they stormed a government girls’ boarding school in northwestern Kebbi State. The school’s vice principal was shot and killed during this attack.

Nigerian content creator Eze Gloria Chidinma, whose younger sister is a student at the school and managed to escape during the abduction, told the Associated Press she thinks the authorities “are not doing enough” to curb cases of school abductions.

“It’s traumatic,” she said, “I really do not believe in the authorities, to be very honest.” Chidinma’s mother and elder brother were also kidnapped in a separate incident last year.

The Niger State government condemned the latest attack on St. Mary’s School, while local police issued a statement Friday indicating that security forces have deployed to the area and are “combing the forests” in an effort to rescue the abducted students.

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Armed bandits kidnap more than 300 students from Catholic school in Nigeria