Gunmen from a criminal gang kidnapped 25 students and killed a staff member during an attack on a girls secondary school in northwestern Nigeria on Monday, police said, underscoring the persistent insecurity that has plagued the region for more than a decade.
Police reported that the armed gang, described as carrying sophisticated weapons, stormed the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in Kebbi state at about 4am.
According to the police statement, officers were deployed rapidly but the attackers had already climbed the perimeter fence and seized the students from their hostel before fleeing to an unknown location.
A report submitted to the United Nations confirmed that the school’s deputy head teacher was shot dead during the assault, while a security guard sustained injuries.
Military personnel, police tactical units and local vigilante groups are now combing nearby forests and known bandit routes in an attempt to rescue the abducted students.
The incident is the second mass school abduction in Kebbi in four years. In June 2021, gunmen kidnapped more than 100 students and staff from a government college in the state.
The captives were released in batches over the following two years, after parents raised ransom payments.
The latest attack echoes the 2014 abduction of 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno state, which sparked global outrage and the Bring Back Our Girls campaign. Nearly 100 of those girls remain missing.
School kidnappings have continued across Nigeria despite government pledges to secure learning institutions in the north.
More than 130 schoolchildren were abducted in March 2024 in Kuriga in Kaduna state before being released unharmed.
A 2023 report by Save the Children estimated that more than 1,680 pupils were kidnapped from Nigerian schools between 2014 and 2022.
Authorities in Kebbi have urged residents to assist security forces with information as search operations intensify.
