Gunmen Kidnap 25 Girls from Nigerian Boarding School

Gunmen kidnapped 25 girls from a boarding school in Nigeria’s Kebbi State in a pre-dawn raid Monday, killing at least one staff member in the latest mass abduction to strike the country’s educational institutions.

The armed attackers struck around 4 a.m., wielding “sophisticated weapons” as they exchanged gunfire with school guards before making off with the schoolgirls, according to police spokesperson Nafi’u Abubakar Kotarkoshi. No group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

“A combined team is currently combing suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a coordinated search and rescue operation aimed at recovering the abducted students and arresting the perpetrators,” Kotarkoshi told The Associated Press, confirming that the attack left one person dead and another injured.

Eyewitness Abdulkarim Abdullahi Maga, whose daughter and granddaughter were among those abducted, described how the gunmen arrived on motorcycles. “They first went straight to the teacher’s house and killed him before killing the guard,” Maga recounted.

The Nigerian government has swiftly condemned the attack. Information Minister Mohamed Idris told Fox News Digital that authorities are working to ensure the girls’ safe return and to bring the perpetrators to justice.

“The Federal Government expresses deep concern and solidarity with the families of the female students abducted from Government Girls Secondary School, Maga, in Danko/Wasagu Local Government Area of Kebbi State. We share in their pain and are firmly committed to bringing the girls home safely,” Idris said.

He added that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has emphasized that protecting Nigerian citizens, especially schoolchildren, “remains a solemn responsibility of the State.”

This latest abduction is part of a disturbing pattern of mass kidnappings targeting schools across northern Nigeria, a region plagued by insurgent groups and criminal gangs known locally as bandits. The incident has reignited concerns about the safety of educational institutions in the country, particularly those in remote areas.

In 2024 alone, attackers kidnapped 280 students from a school in neighboring Kaduna State. During the same period, at least 200 others, mostly internally displaced women and children, were abducted in Borno State while reportedly searching for firewood, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

The most notorious school abduction occurred in 2014, when Boko Haram militants kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from a secondary school in Chibok. That attack sparked international outrage and the global #BringBackOurGirls campaign. While many of the Chibok girls have since been rescued or released, dozens remain missing to this day.

School abductions have become a lucrative criminal enterprise in Nigeria. Armed groups frequently demand substantial ransoms for the release of captives, creating a cycle that funds further violence and instability. The practice has led many families in affected regions to keep their children, especially girls, out of school, dealing a severe blow to educational advancement in these communities.

Security analysts point to the government’s struggles in policing vast rural territories, where bandits can easily retreat into forests after conducting raids. The porous borders with neighboring countries also make it difficult to track perpetrators.

U.S. Congressman Riley Moore (R-W.Va.) has called for prayers for the kidnapped schoolgirls and urged the Nigerian government to take stronger action to end the “rampant violence” that continues to plague parts of the country.

The Kebbi State incident underscores the ongoing security challenges facing Africa’s most populous nation, particularly in its northern regions where government authority is often tenuous and armed groups operate with relative impunity. As search operations continue, families of the abducted girls face an agonizing wait for news of their loved ones.