Pupils abducted from Nigerian Catholic school
An unknown number of students have been kidnapped by gunmen from a Catholic school in central Nigeria; This was the second mass school kidnapping this week.
The latest attack targeted St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger state, where authorities have ordered the temporary closure of all boarding schools due to increasing security threats.
Details remain unclear, but residents fear up to 100 students and staff may have been taken in the early morning raid.
Nigeria has faced a renewed wave of attacks by armed groups in recent days, including the abduction of more than 20 schoolgirls from a boarding school in nearby Kebbi state on Monday.
Police said armed men, known locally as bandits, broke into St Mary’s School at around 2am local time on Friday and abducted an unconfirmed number of students from their hostels.
Fear and uncertainty gripped the region as families waited for news.
Authorities in Niger state said the school ignored an order to close all boarding facilities after intelligence warnings of the increased risk of attacks.
“Unfortunately, St Mary’s School has continued to reopen and resume academic activities without notifying or seeking permission from the state government, thereby exposing students and staff to avoidable risk,” it said in a statement. they said.
Police said security units were “combing the forests in an attempt to rescue the kidnapped students.”
The attack followed US President Donald Trump’s claims that Christians were being persecuted in Nigeria, a claim denied by the Nigerian government.
Earlier this month, Trump said he would send troops “with firearms” to Nigeria if the Nigerian government “continues to allow the killing of Christians.”
The Nigerian government has pushed back against these claims, calling them a “gross distortion of the truth.”
“Terrorists are attacking anyone who rejects their murderous ideology – Muslims, Christians and those of no faith at all,” one official said.
Nigeria is currently grappling with multiple overlapping security crises.
The country’s population of 220 million is roughly evenly divided between adherents of the two religions, with Muslims being the majority in the north.
Kidnapping of people for ransom by criminal gangs known locally as bandits has become a major problem in many parts of the country.
In the northeast, jihadist groups have been fighting the state for more than a decade. Organizations that monitor the violence say most of the victims of these groups are Muslims because most of the attacks occur in the north.
In the center of the country, there are frequent deadly attacks by mostly Muslim shepherds against mostly Christian farmers. But analysts say these are often driven by competition for resources such as water or land rather than religion.
On Tuesday, gunmen opened fire on a church in southwestern Kwara state, killing two people and kidnapping 38 others as the service was being streamed online.
Local media report that the kidnappers are demanding ransom.
The BBC has been told that the students kidnapped in Kebbi province earlier this week were Muslims. Two of them managed to escape, while 23 people are still missing.
President Bola Tinubu this week postponed foreign trips to respond to a growing wave of attacks in Africa’s most populous country.
