{"id":396764,"date":"2025-11-22T11:05:15","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396764\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T11:05:15","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:05:15","slug":"number-of-children-abducted-in-nigerian-school-attack-raised-to-more-than-300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396764\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of children abducted in Nigerian school attack raised to more than 300"},"content":{"rendered":"

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) \u2014 A total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were abducted by gunmen during an attack on St. Mary\u2019s School, a Catholic institution in north-central Nigeria\u2019s Niger state, the Christian Association of Nigeria said Saturday, updating an earlier tally of 215<\/a> schoolchildren.<\/p>\n

The tally was changed \u201cafter a verification exercise and a final census was carried out,\u201d according to a statement issued by the Most. Rev. Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Niger state chapter of CAN, who visited the school on Friday.<\/p>\n

He said 88 other students \u201cwere also captured after they tried to escape\u201d during the attack. The students were both male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.<\/p>\n

The school kidnapping in Niger state\u2019s remote Papiri community happened four days after 25 schoolchildren were seized<\/a> in similar circumstances in neighboring Kebbi state\u2019s Maga town, which is 170 kilometers (106 miles) away.<\/p>\n

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions<\/a> and authorities have said tactical squads have been deployed alongside local hunters to rescue the children.<\/p>\n

Yohanna described as false a claim from the state government that the school had reopened for studies despite an earlier directive for schools in that part of Niger state to close temporarily due to security threats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not receive any circular. It must be an afterthought and a way to shift blame,\u201d he said, calling on families \u201cto remain calm and prayerful.\u201d<\/p>\n

School kidnappings have come to define insecurity in Africa\u2019s most populous nation, and armed gangs often see schools as \u201cstrategic\u201d targets to draw more attention.<\/p>\n

UNICEF said last year that only 37% of schools across 10 of the conflict-hit states have early warning systems to detect threats.<\/p>\n

The kidnappings are happening amid U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s claims of targeted killings against Christians in the West African country. Attacks in Nigeria affect both Christians and Muslims<\/a>. The school attack earlier this week in Kebbi state was in a Muslim-majority town.<\/p>\n

The attack also took place as Nigerian National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu was visiting the U.S. where he met Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) \u2014 A total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers were abducted by gunmen during an…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":396765,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[188196,8571,4219,69,57,22938,50,1219,6986,3677,103,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-396764","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-bulus-dauwa-yohanna","9":"tag-christianity","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-kidnapping","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nigeria","16":"tag-pete-hegseth","17":"tag-shootings","18":"tag-world","19":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115593027518648990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}