Nigeria: Over 300 students were abducted by gunmen from school

In Nigeria, a total of 303 schoolchildren and 12 teachers have been abducted by gunmen during Friday’s attack on St Mary’s Catholic School in north-central Niger State, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has said, as security fears accelerate in Africa’s most populous nation. The update from an earlier tally of 215 schoolchildren was announced on Saturday and was changed “after a verification exercise and a final census was carried out”, according to a statement issued by the Most Reverend Bulus Dauwa Yohanna, chairman of the Niger State chapter of CAN, who visited the school. Residents described scenes of panic as families searched for their missing children.The students were both male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.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.
President Bola Tinubu cancelled his planned trip to the G20 summit in South Africa following the abductions. Vice President Kashim Shettima will attend in his place, the presidency said on X. UNICEF said last year that only 37% of schools across 10 of the conflict-hit states have early warning systems to detect threats.
The attack comes just days after armed men stormed a secondary school in northwestern Nigeria, abducting 25 schoolgirls in similar circumstances in neighbouring Kebbi State’s Maga town, which is 170km away, early on Monday morning. One girl later escaped, and 24 are still missing.No group has yet claimed responsibility for the two abductions, and authorities have said tactical squads have been deployed alongside local hunters to rescue the children.