{"id":399131,"date":"2025-11-23T12:52:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/399131\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T12:52:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T12:52:21","slug":"nigeria-sees-one-of-worst-mass-abductions-as-315-taken-from-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/399131\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria sees one of worst mass abductions as 315 taken from school"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Smith, <\/p>\n

Chris Ewokor,BBC Africa, in Abuja, and <\/p>\n

Elettra Neysmith<\/p>\n

\"BBCBBC<\/p>\n

St Mary’s School, in Niger state, was attacked in the early hours of Friday morning<\/p>\n

More than 300 children and staff are now thought to have been kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, making it one of the worst mass abductions the country has seen.<\/p>\n

The Christian Association of Nigeria said 303 students and 12 teachers were taken from on St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state – substantially more than previously estimated.<\/p>\n

It said the figures have been revised upwards “after a verification exercise”.<\/p>\n

The kidnapping comes amid a surge of attacks by armed groups. The revised number of people taken surpasses the 276 abducted during the infamous Chibok mass abduction of 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Local police said armed men stormed the school at around 02:00 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday morning, abducting students who were staying there.<\/p>\n

Dominic Adamu, whose daughters attend the school but were not taken, told the BBC: “Everybody is weak… it took everybody by surprise.”<\/p>\n

One distressed woman tearfully told the BBC that her nieces, aged six and 13, had been kidnapped, adding: “I just want them to come home.”<\/p>\n

Police said that security agencies were “combing the forests with a view to rescue the abducted students”.<\/p>\n

All schools in Niger state were ordered to close on Saturday in response to the kidnapping.<\/p>\n

It was initially reported that 215 pupils had been taken<\/a> but that figure has since been revised. The new number is believed to be almost half of the school’s student population, the news agency AFP reports.<\/p>\n

Authorities in Niger state said the school had disregarded an order to close all boarding facilities following intelligence warnings of a heightened risk of attacks.<\/p>\n

They said in a statement the move exposed pupils and staff to “avoidable risk”. The school has not commented on that claim.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The kidnapping of people for ransom by criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, has become a major problem in many parts of Nigeria.<\/p>\n

The payment of ransoms has been outlawed in an attempt to cut the supply of money to the criminal gangs, but it has had little effect.<\/p>\n

Friday’s mass abduction was the third such attack in the country in a week.<\/p>\n

On Monday, more than 20 schoolgirls, who the BBC has been told are Muslim, were kidnapped from a boarding school in neighbouring Kebbi state.<\/p>\n

A church was also attacked further south in Kwara state, with two people killed and 38 others abducted.<\/p>\n

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has postponed his foreign trips – including to this weekend’s G20 summit in South Africa – in order to address the security concerns.<\/p>\n

The rising insecurity is fuelling anger as well as fear in Nigeria, with citizens demanding stronger action to protect children and communities.<\/p>\n

The mass abduction follows claims by right-wing figures in the US, including President Donald Trump, that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria.<\/p>\n

For months, campaigners and politicians in Washington have been alleging that Islamist militants are systematically targeting Christians<\/a>. The Nigerian government has dimissed this claim. <\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Trump said he would send troops into Nigeria “guns a-blazing” if the African nation’s government “continues to allow the killing of Christians”.<\/p>\n

The Nigerian government has called claims that Christians are being persecuted “a gross misrepresentation of reality”.<\/p>\n

An official said that “terrorists attack all who reject their murderous ideology – Muslims, Christians and those of no faith alike”.<\/p>\n

In the north-east, jihadist groups have been battling the state for more than a decade.<\/p>\n

Organisations monitoring violence say most of the victims of these groups are Muslim because most attacks happen in the majority Muslim north of the country.<\/p>\n

In the centre of Nigeria, there are also frequently deadly attacks between herders – who are mostly Muslim – on farmers, who are largely Christian.<\/p>\n

However, analysts say these are often motivated by competition for resources, such as water or land, rather than religion.<\/p>\n

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram took 276 girls from their school in the town of Chibok 2014.<\/p>\n

The incident courted international attention and sparked a global campaign seeking their return, which included an intervention from then-US First Lady Michelle Obama.<\/p>\n

Many have since either escaped or been freed, but as many as 100 still remain missing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Smith, Chris Ewokor,BBC Africa, in Abuja, and Elettra Neysmith BBC St Mary’s School, in Niger state, was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":399132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[50,103],"class_list":{"0":"post-399131","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399131","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=399131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}