At least 50 of the more than 300 children snatched by gunmen from a Catholic school in Nigeria have escaped their captors, a Christian group said on Sunday, as the president announced the rescue of 38 worshipers seized in a separate attack last week.
Gunmen on Friday last week raided St Mary’s coeducation school in Niger state, taking 303 children and 12 teachers in one of the largest mass kidnappings in Nigeria.
The abduction came days after gunmen stormed a secondary school in neighboring Kebbi state, taking 25 girls. On Tuesday last week, gunmen raided a church in Kwara state in an attack that was recorded and broadcast online, showing the service being interrupted by gunfire, worshipers fleeing and screaming being heard outside.
Photo: Reuters
Two people were killed in that attack, but the 38 worshipers who were abducted were later rescued by security forces, Nigerian President Bola Tinubu said Sunday on social media.
The Christian Association of Nigeria in a statement said that “we have received some good news as 50 [St Mary’s] pupils escaped and have reunited with their parents.”
The number of boys and girls — aged between eight and 18 years old — kidnapped from St Mary’s is almost half of the school’s student population of more than 600.
The Nigerian government has not commented on the number of children taken from the school, but Tinubu said in his post that “51 out of the missing” Catholic school students “have been recovered.”
“I will not relent, and under my watch, we will secure this nation and protect our people,” he said.
Mounting security fears in Africa’s most populous nation have sparked a wave of school closures across some parts of the country.
Since Islamist militants kidnapped nearly 300 schoolgirls from Chibok more than a decade ago, Nigeria has struggled with a spate of mass kidnappings, mostly carried out by criminal gangs looking for ransom payments.
Gangs often attack remote boarding schools where they know a lack of security presence would make for soft targets. Most victims are released after negotiations.
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday made “a heartfelt appeal for the immediate release of the hostages.”
He expressed his “deep sorrow, especially for the many young boys and girls kidnapped, and for their anguished families,” at the end of the Angelus prayer.
The two abduction operations and the church attack came as US President Donald Trump threatened military action over what he called the persecution of Christians by radical Islamists in Nigeria.
When asked about the attacks and kidnappings on Fox News Radio, Trump said: “What’s happening in Nigeria is a disgrace.”
Nearly a week after their capture, two dozen school girls in neighboring Kebbi state are still missing. Security forces have identified locations where they are thought to be held, a security source said. Only one of the 25 girls managed to escape early in the week.
Meanwhile, 13 women and girls aged between 16 and 23 were kidnapped in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno state while walking home from their farms on Saturday, a local official said.
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