A mass abduction has targeted a school in Niger State, Nigeria, wiht over 300 students and 12 teachers now missing following a Friday attack on the santa Maria School in the Agwara local goverment area.This incident underscores a disturbing trend of increasing insecurity in Nigerian educational institutions, and comes just days after a separate kidnapping of 25 students in the northwest region. Authorities have launched rescue efforts, but no group has claimed obligation as of Saturday.
More than 300 students and 12 teachers have been kidnapped after an attack on the Santa Maria School in Niger State, Nigeria. The mass abduction highlights the escalating insecurity plaguing educational institutions in the region.
Bauchi State, Nigéria
Sodiq Adelakun
More than 300 students and 12 teachers were abducted Friday following an attack on the Santa Maria School in the Agwara local government area of Niger State, Nigeria.
The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) provided the updated figure, revising an earlier estimate of 215 students and teachers taken hostage.
According to the Associated Press and France-Presse, the number was revised “after a verification exercise and a final headcount,” according to a statement released by Archbishop Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the state section of CAN, who visited the school on Friday.
The attack occurred just days after armed men kidnapped 25 students from a girls’ boarding school in Maga, in the northwest, on Sunday night.
Authorities have deployed tactical teams, along with local hunters, to attempt to rescue the captives, but no group has yet claimed responsibility for the abductions.
“This is very unfortunate. Terrorists are perpetrating a new wave of kidnappings and we cannot succumb,” Joseph Hayab, national president of CAN, told the Spanish news agency EFE.
With LUSA
