abuja, nigeria
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Armed robbers have kidnapped more than 300 students from a Catholic private school in Niger state in north-central Nigeria, authorities said, the latest in a series of mass abductions and attacks that have attracted attention from the Trump administration.
Although some students managed to flee to safety in Friday’s attack, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said 303 students and 12 teachers were abducted in the attack, up from the previous figure of 215 students. Some are as young as 10 years old.
Most, chairman of CAN’s Niger state branch, said the figures were updated after the final census was conducted. Pastor Brus Dawwa Johanna visited St. Mary’s School on Friday and met with the parents of the abducted children.
Johanna’s spokesperson Daniel Atli told CNN on Saturday that an additional 88 students were also “caught trying to escape” during the attack, adding that the students were both male and female and ranged in age from 10 to 18.
Authorities said some federal and state schools in northern Nigeria had been temporarily closed to prevent further attacks following Friday’s kidnapping.
The abduction in Niger state, which borders Nigeria’s capital Abuja, followed a similar attack on a church by armed men in neighboring Kwara state earlier this week. At least two people were killed in the church attack and several members, including the pastor, were abducted.
Also this week, armed men attacked a public girls’ boarding school in northwestern Kebbi state and kidnapped 25 girls. The school’s vice principal was shot and killed in the attack.
The sister of Nigerian content creator Eze Gloria Chidinma, a student at the school who managed to escape during the abduction, told The Associated Press that she doesn’t think authorities are “doing enough” to curb kidnappings at the school.
“It’s traumatizing. To be honest, I don’t really trust the authorities,” she said. Chidinma’s mother and brother were also kidnapped in separate incidents last year.
The Niger state government has condemned the recent attack on St. Mary’s School, and local police issued a statement on Friday indicating that security forces had been dispatched to the area and were conducting a “forest search” to rescue the abducted students.
Nigeria is facing a series of attacks by armed groups targeting vulnerable civilians and orchestrating mass abductions for ransom. The country is also plagued by religiously motivated attacks and other violent conflicts stemming from communal and ethnic tensions, as well as conflicts between farmers and pastoralists over limited access to land and water resources.
US President Donald Trump has frequently expressed anger over controversial allegations of a “genocide” of Christians by Islamic militants in Nigeria, and has threatened military action to protect the religious group.
Earlier this month, President Trump designated Nigeria as a “Country of Special Concern” under the U.S. International Religious Freedom Act, indicating that the administration had determined that Nigeria engaged in or condoned “systematic and sustained (and) egregious violations of religious freedom.”
The latest series of attacks coincided with the arrival of a Nigerian delegation in Washington for consultations with U.S. government officials.
Army Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media Thursday that he met with Nigeria’s national security adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, “to discuss the appalling violence against Christians in our country.”
“Under (Trump’s) leadership, the (Department of the Army) is actively working with Nigeria to end the persecution of Christians by jihadist terrorists,” Hegseth added.
