Nigeria: Over 200 students abducted from Catholic school

A group of armed men kidnapped more than 220 pupils and staff from a Catholic boarding school in central Nigeria, local officials said on Friday.

Local police said the attack happened in the early hours of Friday morning, just days after a similar attack on a girls' school in another part of the country.

The Christian Association of Nigeria said that a total of 227 people had been abducted, including 215 pupils and 12 teachers.

What do we know about the school kidnapping in Nigeria?

"The Niger State government has received with deep sadness the disturbing news of the kidnapping of pupils from St. Mary's School in Agwara local government area," Abubakar Usman, the state government secretary, said in a statement.

The local Catholic diocese said "armed attackers invaded" the school between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m. [0000 to 0200 GMT], abducting "pupils, students, teachers and a security" guard who was shot.

"Some students escaped and parents have started coming [to] pick up their children as the school has to be shutdown," the Christian Association of Nigeria said in its statement.

The secretary to the Niger state government said the school had remained open despite intelligence warnings of a heightened threat.

"Regrettably, St. Mary's School proceeded to reopen and resume academic activities without notifying or seeking clearance from the State Government, thereby exposing pupils and the staff to avoidable risk," a statement from the secretary read.

Niger State Police Command said St. Mary's was a secondary school for students aged 12 to 17.

How have Nigerian authorities responded to the kidnapping?

Niger state police said they had received a report around 2 a.m. that "some armed bandits invaded St. Mary's Private (Catholic) Secondary School... and abducted a yet to be ascertained number of students from the school's hostel."

Tactical police units and military forces had been deployed.

Security forces have been on high alert following a spate of recent attacks and kidnappings.

The police said they were "combing the forests with a view to rescue the abducted students."

Why is Nigerian security under so much scrutiny?

Friday's kidnapping comes after an attack on Monday resulted in the abduction of 25 girls from a predominantly Muslim boarding school in Kebbi state.

The incident forced President Bola Tinubu to cancel foreign trips to deal with the fallout.