Students kidnapped from St. Mary’s Catholic School

An unknown number of students have been kidnapped by armed men from a Catholic school in central Nigeria, the second kidnapping from a public school this week.

The latest attack targeted St Mary’s School in Papiri, Niger State. Authorities have already ordered the temporary closure of all boarding schools due to increased security threats.

Details remain unclear, but residents fear as many as 100 students and staff may have been kidnapped in the early morning raid.

Nigeria has recently faced new attacks by armed groups. On Monday, more than 20 girls were kidnapped from a boarding school in nearby Kebbi province. The BBC reported that the girls were Muslim.

In the southwestern state of Kwara, a church was also attacked, killing two people and kidnapping 38 while a service was being broadcast online.

Police said armed men, known locally as bandits, stormed into St Mary’s School at around 2am (GMT) on Friday and abducted an undetermined number of students from their hostel.

Fear and uncertainty gripped the region as families waited for news.

“Everyone is vulnerable. It took everyone by surprise,” local resident Dominic Adamu told the BBC.

“People are complaining about the state of security in our country,” added Mr Adamu, whose daughters attend St Mary’s School but were not kidnapped.

A distressed woman told the BBC through tears that her nephews, aged six and 13, had been kidnapped.

“I just want them to come home,” she said.

Niger authorities said they had ignored orders to close all boarding facilities after being warned by intelligence that schools attended by both female and male students were at increased risk of attacks.

“Unfortunately, St. Mary’s School reopened and resumed academic activities without notifying or seeking approval from the provincial government, exposing students and staff to avoidable risks,” they said in a statement.

The school did not comment.

Police said security agencies were “searching the forest to rescue the kidnapped students.”

The attack follows U.S. President Donald Trump’s claim that Christians are being persecuted in Nigeria, which the Nigerian government dismissed.

Earlier this month, President Trump said he would send troops to Nigeria if the government continues to allow the killing of Christians.

The Nigerian government refuted these claims, calling them “serious distortions of reality.”

“Terrorists attack anyone who rejects their murderous ideology, including Muslims, Christians and the non-religious,” one official said.

Nigeria is currently experiencing several overlapping security crises.

The country’s 220 million people are roughly evenly divided between followers of the two religions, with the north being majority Muslim.

Kidnapping people for ransom by criminal groups 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 government for more than a decade. Groups that monitor violence say most victims of these groups are Muslims because most attacks occur in the north.

Deadly attacks also occur frequently in the center of the country between herders, who are mostly Muslim, and farmers, who are mostly Christian. But analysts say the phenomenon is often less about religion and more about competition over resources such as water and land.

Local media reported that the kidnappers demanded ransom from those abducted at a church in Eruku, Kwara State.

Ransom payments were made illegal in an attempt to reduce the supply of funds to criminal organizations, but this had little effect.

Two of the girls kidnapped in Maga, Kebbi province on Monday managed to escape, while 23 are still missing. Two people were killed in the attack. They were both Muslims.

President Bola Tinubu postponed international travel this week to deal with a growing wave of attacks in Africa’s most populous country.

Additional reporting by Abayomi Adisa in Lagos and Wedaeli Chibelushi in London