GOOGLE Nearly 100 pupils and staff feared abducted as authorities blame defiance of safety order; wave of attacks across multiple states deepens national anxiety
Authorities and residents in Niger State are grappling with shock and fear after a large group of students and staff were seized during a pre-dawn assault on St Mary’s School in the Papiri community. The incident, believed to have occurred around 2:00 a.m. local time, is the latest in a troubling resurgence of mass abductions by armed groups across Nigeria.
Initial information remains uncertain, but local residents fear that close to one hundred people may have been taken. Families have gathered anxiously, waiting for updates while security forces continue operations in the surrounding forests in an attempt to locate the victims.
State officials revealed that St. Mary’s School had been instructed, along with all other boarding schools in the region, to suspend operations due to heightened intelligence warnings. Authorities said the school reopened without notifying the government, a decision they described as exposing pupils and staff to preventable danger. The school’s administration has yet to publicly respond.
Africa Independent Television via ReutersThe attack adds to a series of violent incidents reported across the country in recent days. Earlier in the week, armed men raided a boarding school in Maga, Kebbi State, abducting more than 20 schoolgirls. While two of the girls later escaped, over twenty remain missing, and two people were killed during that assault.
In another incident, a church in Eruku, Kwara State, was targeted during a live-streamed service. Two worshippers were killed and nearly 40 people abducted. Local reports suggest that the kidnappers have since demanded ransom payments, despite a national law banning ransom transactions to cut off financial inflows to criminal groups.
These escalating attacks come amid renewed international scrutiny. Recent claims by former U.S. President Donald Trump, alleging that Nigeria’s government allows religiously targeted killings, have been firmly rejected by Nigerian officials. Authorities argue that extremist groups victimize people of all backgrounds, Muslims, Christians, and non-religious citizens based on their refusal to accept extremist ideology, not because of their faith.
Nigeria’s security landscape has grown increasingly complex. In the north-east, jihadist groups have waged an insurgency for over a decade, with monitoring organizations reporting that most of the victims are Muslims simply because the majority of the population in that region is Muslim. In central regions, long-running confrontations between largely Muslim herders and predominantly Christian farming communities continue to cause casualties. However, analysts say these clashes are driven more by competition over land and water than by religious identity.
Across the north-west and other regions, criminal gangs—referred to locally as bandits have intensified operations, frequently resorting to kidnapping for ransom, a practice that has devastated communities and overwhelmed security agencies.
President Bola Tinubu has postponed scheduled foreign engagements to address the spiraling violence. As authorities search for the abducted students and continue to pursue the perpetrators of recent attacks, many Nigerians are calling for urgent and coordinated action to restore confidence and safety across the country.
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