Armed assailants have raided a secondary school in northwest Nigeria, seizing 25 schoolgirls and injuring a staff member, as per police reports.
The abduction occurred at the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Maga, Kebbi state, at approximately 4:00 a.m. local time on Monday, according to authorities.
The attackers, wielding advanced weaponry, clashed with on-duty police officers in a gun battle before breaching the school’s perimeter and taking twenty-five students from their dormitory to an undisclosed location, stated a police release.
A report submitted to the UN revealed that the school’s deputy principal was killed by gunfire, while a security guard sustained bullet wounds during the assault.
Law enforcement has mobilized tactical units, the military, and local volunteer groups in the vicinity to search the bandits’ pathways and nearby forests to locate the missing girls and apprehend the assailants, known locally as bandits.
Since the emergence of the Boko Haram faction in Nigeria’s northeast in 2009, the country has grappled with rampant armed conflicts, with abductions persisting as a major issue in northern educational institutions.
In 2014, the high-profile abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno state garnered global attention, sparking the viral “#BringBackOurGirls” campaign. Nearly 100 of the girls remained unaccounted for as of last year.
In a separate incident in June 2021, over 100 students and faculty members were abducted from a government college in Kebbi state, with students being released gradually over a span of two years following ransom payments by parents. Some victims were coerced into marriage, while others returned with infants.
Just a month later, gunmen kidnapped 140 boarding pupils from Bethel Baptist School in Kaduna state. The abductees were released in stages as ransom demands were met in subsequent months.
According to a report by Save the Children charity published last year, more than 1,680 students were kidnapped from Nigerian schools between early 2014 and the end of 2022.