ABUJA, Nigeria (BN24) — Gunmen abducted 25 schoolgirls and killed a teacher during an early morning attack on a boarding high school in northwestern Nigeria, police said Monday, in the latest assault targeting educational institutions in a region struggling with widespread insecurity.
The attack occurred around 4 a.m. at a girls’ boarding school in the Maga community of Kebbi state’s Danko-Wasagu district. Police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi said the armed men stormed the dormitories with “sophisticated weapons” and engaged school guards in a brief exchange of gunfire before seizing the students. No group has claimed responsibility and authorities have not identified a motive.
Nigeria continues to face overlapping security crises driven by armed bandit groups that frequently kidnap villagers and travelers for ransom across the northern states. These gangs operate separately from extremist organizations such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province, whose attacks are primarily ideologically motivated. The rise in ransom kidnappings has strained security forces and left rural communities vulnerable.
Kotarkoshi said security teams are “combing suspected escape routes and nearby forests” in a coordinated search and rescue mission to recover the girls and locate the attackers.
Attacks on schools have escalated since 2014, when Boko Haram abducted 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, an assault that drew global outrage and marked the beginning of a wave of mass student kidnappings. At least 1,500 students have been kidnapped across northern Nigeria in the years since, as criminal groups increasingly use abductions to finance operations and assert control. In March, more than 130 children were rescued after spending more than two weeks in captivity in Kaduna state.
